Stolen from "dawgsfinnaeat1" on 247: Just passing this along. Take it for what it's worth but I received this info from a basketball coach in the Jackson area that's familar with Malik. During his visit at some point Howland told Malik that he coached a guy very similar to him (malik) that's about to be named the MVP of the NBA, then Howland said let's call him up and see what he thinks you need to do next year. Howland then calls Russell Westbrook and puts him on speaker phone and he talked to Malik for several minutes about playing for Coach Howland and how he believed Howland would get him to where he wants to be and so on.