Orlando Magic: Dreaming Of DeMarcus Cousins

The Orlando Magic figure to be players in the offseasons of 2015 and 2016 as they look to build towards making the playoffs again. While many feel the draft will be the way this team goes once again this summer, 2016 represents real hope of finding a top level player to kick this rebuilding project into overdrive.

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Look at the above headline again before going any further as well, because we’re firmly in dream land here. There is little to suggest DeMarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings even wants to leave his current team, let alone join another organization nowhere near title contention.

But there have been some small rumblings recently to suggest that, while this is still a crazy notion, maybe it’s not completely mad.

Now, there will be more realistic targets worth looking at this summer, smaller pieces to what could ultimately become a great looking puzzle once complete. We’ve already looked at Lance Stephenson and Landry Fields here as two potential examples. We’ll look at more in the near future as well.

But what if this team shocks the league by moving for that big piece one season earlier than many predict?

But why would Cousins want to leave the Kings when he is clearly the face of that struggling franchise? He did sign an extension with the team in September 2013, keeping him in Sacramento for the next four years. But this team is going nowhere fast, constantly going around in circles trying to find the right players to put around Cousins.

He’s one of the 20 best players in the league (potentially higher in some people’s opinions as well, but we’re not here to get into that) and to date he has wasted his career in Sacramento and is yet to play a minute of playoff basketball. So yeah, I’m thinking he’s getting itchy feet at this point. If he were to force his way out of Sacramento, every team would want him.

It would be hard for the Kings to get fair value back for the guy, but here is where it gets kind of interesting. The Magic could at least come close through various players and draft picks bundled together. They’ve got the cap space too and Bill Simmons excellently illustrated here why they’re the perfect partner to go with Sacramento should Cousins want out that badly.

They could send Sacramento Nikola Vucevic, a double-double machine in his own right locked down for the next four seasons, as well as what is surely a top five pick in this year’s draft. Additional players (Maurice Harkless, Channing Frye) and picks could be added accordingly as well.

I’m not saying it’s a fair trade. But what I am saying is if Cousins wants to go that badly, can you really get a much better haul than that at short notice?

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Coming at it from Cousins’ perspective, he’d land on an up-and-coming team in the weaker Eastern Conference. Adding him to that team would surely put this team in the playoffs. If Cousins didn’t like what he was seeing in terms of this team taking the big leap, he could just leave after three years anyway.

He’d be 26, in his prime and able to choose where he wants to play for the first time in his career. So it’s not like a death sentence for his career. Rather an interesting change of direction that could actually work out really well.

But hold on, what about the players on this Magic team already? I don’t know about you, but I feel a certain loyalty to the core that is already in place. Yes, Vucevic’s productivity slipped the last couple of weeks of the season. But for large stretches this year he carried a pretty poor team on his back and did it in a positive way. Is that really worth giving up?

I get that you need stars to win big in the NBA, but I’m not ready to give up on this quirky roster just yet. I think they have something as a unit, and we’re close to finding out what it is.

Ultimately though, the chance to trade for Cousins is probably too hard to resist, despite his love of drawing technical fouls and generally having a reputation of one of the harder stars to co-exist with in the league.

Do I think this will happen? Hey, I said this was dreamland for a reason. But of all the available stars this summer, the Marc Gasols and LaMarcus Aldridges, it may actually be Cousins, who is not a free agent in any form, who becomes the most attainable.

I still feel 2016 is when this team will really pounce in the open market. But if an All-Star big man is trying to force his way out of his current situation, why not get involved and see where it leads? This team has got to start making bigger moves at some point after all. Could it ever actually happen though?

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