<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Dallas Morning News - No matter what Charles Barkley and other announcers might think the Mavericks should do, the team is not in the Ron Artest sweepstakes. "It's not gonna happen," Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said before Friday's game against Seattle. Barkley, Kenny Smith and other national analysts have linked the Mavericks with the disgruntled Indiana Pacers forward, who has requested a trade. The experts have said Artest would be a piece who could put a select few teams on par with San Antonio and Detroit. "If I was the Suns, Mavericks or Heat, I would try to trade for Ron Artest," Barkley said Thursday during the Mavericks-Kings game on TNT. "[They are] the only three teams that have an outside chance of gaining on Detroit and San Antonio, so they might as well roll the dice. "If no one makes a trade, [Detroit and San Antonio] are the teams that will play for the championship." Kenny Smith, Barkley's co-host on TNT's wraparound show, agreed. "Those three teams [Phoenix, Dallas and Miami] can take a chance because they are already good, so he can never explode the situation, he can only enhance it," Smith said. Coach Avery Johnson only laughed when told of the commentators' thoughts.</div> http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives...eal_for_artest/
