If Denver wants Ron Artest — and why wouldn't they? — there are really two ways a potential trade could go. (Sam Amick touches on them both here.)

You can go big, secure your power forward position with a fellow who dunks like a madman, can defend Tim Duncan fairly well in the post, has a contract through 2012, threatens the luxury tax, and might start chemotherapy treatment soon after a malignant tumor was removed from his testicle.

Or you can play it safe, taking on an expiring contract and a young swingman, barely affecting your cap space, shedding a current problem but adding another log to the small forward dam, pushing the search for a power forward to the summer and beyond.

Either could be likely, for both teams' points of view. Geoff Petrie is known to have loved Nene. George Karl is one of few coaches who'd love to try to prove he can make Artest sane. Linas Kleiza is and will always be trapped behind Carmelo Anthony. Eduardo Najera isn't a major cog this year. Petrie loves big fellows (Kleiza's 6'8) who can shoot (Kleiza's TS% is up around .579).

I think Petrie could squeeze a first-round pick out of either deal, but it'd be more likely in the Kleiza/Najera package. The Kleiza/Najera trade could probably happen the second Carmelo Anthony returns from injury, which should be any day. The Nene deal might need to wait until Nene can get back on the court, which will likely be much closer to the trade deadline, if then.

Poll on the right. Your comments below.

UPDATE: An interpretation of how this conservation between the actual actors involved might have went.