Shaq Loves Dallas! (But Cavs Might Love Him More)

   Teams that are interested in negotiating for Shaquille O’Neal still have hope.

   While Mark Cuban would "love to get Shaq''  and while DallasBasketball.com is now being told by a source close to O’Neal that the legendary center recently said, “I’d love to live in Dallas, I'd love to be in Dallas,’’ the Cavaliers have reportedly pushed to the fore in dealings with cash-poor Phoenix.

   Let’s start with the disclaimers necessary to frame The Big Diesel’s affection for Big D, and then get to the much more likely possibility that O’Neal lands in Cleveland:

   The context: While this conversation occurred on the eve on All-Star Weekend, Shaq was talking generally about his lifestyle future and not necessarily about his basketball future.

   Still …

   You know, we cannot do this without all the disclaimers. Because as much as we love website traffic, we also don’t want our license to practice journalism revoked. So allow us to tap the breaks on the Shaq-to-the-Mavs trade parade. ... and recognize the realities of what's going on in Cleveland. Let’s disclaimer-away:

   *Shaq did not necessarily say this to our mutual friend as a specific answer to a specific question about a trade. This was an at-least-in-part general conversation about the NBA legend’s fondness for Big D.

  *O’Neal has no official stroke (i.e., a no-trade clause) that would guide him from the Suns to the team of his choice. So trades being what they are, “loving’’ Dallas doesn’t keep a traded NBA player from “tolerating Cleveland’’ or “tolerating Siberia’’ or wherever. And of course, right now, there is nothing wrong with Cleveland, anyway.

   *Shaq’s “I love Dallas’’ answer can safely be construed as a forecast of post-career plans as much as anything. At 36, he can “love Dallas’’ as one of his semi-retirement homes, just as he figures to “love’’ and maintain his homes in Phoenix, South Florida, LA (where he owns a condo at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel) and elsewhere. I’m told O’Neal’s family already has property in North Texas. By the way, last time I checked, the Arizona house in which he resides is the former pad of Emmitt Smith. Point being, when you are 7-1, 350 pounds and make $20 mil a year, you can have lots of “hometowns’’ and lots of “favorite cities’’ and your world seems smaller.

   So Shaq loves Dallas as much as Cuban loves Shaq. Our established detailing of the logic that would fuel Dallas-Phoenix trade talks is not derailed by word out of Arizona  that the Suns have suddenly decided maybe they should “stand pat.’’

   Listen, Suns owner Robert Sarver didn’t just wake up and find 30 million dollars under his sofa cushions.

   But the rails from Phoenix don’t lead to Dallas. Right now they lead to Cleveland.

   The Cleveland paper is reporting that the Cavs have offered Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic for O’Neal. Shaq with LeBron? There is reason for O’Neal to love that just as much as he loves Dallas.

    Our numbers say a deal that moves Shaq to Dallas (with Josh Howard as the main lure) allows the budget-minded Sarver to escape his $42-million commitment to O’Neal and to sink below the tax threshold immediately, thus saving himself $5 million in this year’s taxes, allowing him to dip into the NBA’s non-tax-team fund for about $3 million, and keep him tax-free for next season. That’s all right off the top – maybe $11 million Sarver can pocket, in addition to the $20 mil he saves by swapping out Shaq’s salary for Howard’s.

    If you are struggling financially, why not pocket $31 million in the process?

    Unfortunately for Dallas, Phoenix seems to be working on filling its pockets by dealing with Cleveland.

    Our overall view of all this: The DMNews’ Eddie Sefko correctly felt out the odds a few days ago by forecasting that no such blockbuster will be executed. He’s right; this trade is unlikely, as all trades gossiped about and even discussed are unlikely. ESPN’s Marc Stein has a similarly excellent feel for both organizations and was essentially making the same prediction. And again, moves like this are so large, complex and daring that they are so much easier to not do. So Marc is on solid ground.

   It’s not happening. Of course it’s not. But we now know Shaq loves Dallas. We now know that Cuban loves Shaq. It’s just that we also now know that Cleveland loves him, too.