If you are asking why the trade would be dead?
If Lopez signs with Nets not via a sign and trade he can’t be traded until December, so unless Dwight Howard was still on the Magic around Christmas, Howard will not be taking his talents to Brooklyn.
Nets president Billy King and Lopez’s agent, Arn Tellem, are finalizing the length of the deal – four years for $58 million, or five years for $78 million.
Brooklyn needs Lopez as the centerpiece of a sign-and-trade deal to acquire Orlando’s Dwight Howard, but is running out of time waiting for the Magic to make a decision on where they want to trade him, sources said. The Nets need to add four free agents into a deal for Howard, and convincing all of them to be a part of a complicated sign-and-trade deal much beyond Wednesday’s end to the league’s moratorium on transactions becomes increasingly more unrealistic every day.
Once Lopez signs the deal, he can’t be traded until December.
The Nets might be playing chicken with the Magic, but I don’t think they Magic will be forced into a deal.
Stay tuned.