" Last week, Josh Howard sat in Phoenix's US Airways Arena and said he considered being the Mavericks' sixth man "a job."

It wasn't the passionate embrace of the role that the team was hoping to hear. At the time, Howard also said: "The media's been trying to trade me out of here for, like, three years."

Asked if he thought he'd be a Maverick after the Feb. 18 trade deadline, Howard said: "That's a question you have to ask [management]. It's out of my control. We got six people coming off the books this year. I'm not the only one in this situation."

He's right. But Howard gets all the attention in trade talk because of his contract and his spotty production.

On Wednesday, however, Howard had seven points late in the first quarter and played perhaps his best game of the season (19 points), igniting the Mavericks to an early double-figure lead. "