Dallas reportedly on short list of desired trade destinations for DeMarcus Cousins

When Tim McMahon wrote this piece a few days ago, I had brought it up in our email chat as being not deserving of a full story, so I included it in the Dallas and Cents links instead. It seemed like a "pulled from the rear" trade suggestion, good for a "hmmm", but not a full discussion.

Now, it appears, that Dallas' interest in DeMarcus Cousins, who has been benched, suspended, and reinstated the last month, may be mutual. The Mavs are included on a list of desired locations, as are the Celtics, Magic, and Bobcats. Of course, the obstacles that made this pie-in-the-sky talk a few days ago are still there, but you have to think chances increase if even only slightly when a player requests a specific team(or, in this case, teams).

Cousins recently switched agents, and is now represented by Dan Fegan, who has, by most accounts, a great relationship with the Mavericks. He represents, among others, current Mav Shawn Marion, as well as former Mavs J.J Barea, Delonte West, Drew Gooden, and Matt Carroll, and longtime Mav object of pursuit, Dwight Howard.

Founder of the excellent blog here at SB Nation for the Kings, Sactown Royalty, Tom Ziller breaks the possible trade down like so:

With all due respect to KSR's source, I'm not sure what the Samuel Hell those teams can offer. Boston isn't trading Rajon Rondo, Charlotte isn't trading Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and I can't find a deal involving either of the other two teams that makes an iota of sense for the Kings. Mix in the Maloofs' reported reluctance to lose Cousins and I see a recipe for nothing.

Over at CelticsBlog, Jeff Clark touches the Boston perspective in such a trade.

Ziller and Clark do a great job here, so I would really recommend you just read what they've already put out there if you're interested in the Cousins situation. To summarize, it still looks like the team Cousins most likely plays for at least in the first half of 2013, is Sacramento. I have a hard time seeing Boston or Charlotte wanting to give up the assets required to get Cousins, though I would bet they both have enough to get a deal done. Dallas has to be getting pretty close to desperate, but what can they offer? Orlando is maybe the wildcard, a team who might take a chance and has some interesting though not overwhelmingly inspiring pieces.

Ziller's assessment of Sacramento's positional breakdown is that they are thin in the frontcourt(which I admit surprised me a little, since Jason Thompson has been playing well of late and Thomas Robinson has not seen as much game action as I would have predicted), strong at the 2, and most weak at the 3.

Cousins has rubs, but his is the sort of talent that, if you're buying low on, could make for a steal of a trade acquisition. Meanwhile, Dallas is falling fast into a hole that I become increasingly discouraged they'll be able to crawl out of. If Cuban and Donnie aren't completely turned off by Cousins's attitude, I expect any and all trade options will be considered, including bringing in a third team.