You may be forgiven if you have met the latest round of rumors around Kings center DeMarcus Cousins with a shrug and a yawn. After all, we've heard five years of Cousins trade rumors, and "Boogie" is still in Sacramento, leaving behind a trail of suitors who never really got that close to a deal.

But take heart, because there’s reason to think that by the time February’s trade deadline comes around, Cousins will no longer be with the Kings — and a move could come in the first half of December. That’s the speculation among front office executives around the league, at least.

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“I’d say they have three months, tops,” one Western Conference general manager told Sporting News, requesting anonymity because he is not allowed to speak about other teams' players. “Probably more like a month, or month-and-a-half, because the closer they get to the (February trade) deadline, the less they’re going to get back. If you’re trying to trade him the week of the deadline, it’s going to be tougher.”

The Kings don’t want to give up on this season just yet, certainly not with a new coach in Dave Joerger and point guard Darren Collison now returning to the rotation. The Kings have five straight home games (though all against top-tier teams) beginning Wednesday and running through Thanksgiving. If they flop in that stretch, league executives expect changes to follow.

Cousins has one year remaining on his contract after this season, which pays him $17 million this year, and $18 million next. That’s a great deal for the top center and one of the best offensive players in the league, a guy who is averaging 26.6 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.9 assists a game and is only 26 years old. There are plenty of teams who would like to drop Cousins into their starting five.

But, as always with Cousins, there is the bad to be taken with the good: the hot-headed feuds with referees, the flouting of team rules, the undermining of coaches. Seven years into his NBA career, Cousins has not helped the Kings to a playoff spot, and there are signs — forward Rudy Gay, for one, has been rumored to be seeking a trade — that his fellow Kings don’t think that is going to change.

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That’s has the dual effect of forcing the Kings to finally seriously consider trading Cousins while he still has value while also forcing teams around the rest of the league to cut back on what they might offer for Cousins. Sacramento’s hand is getting weaker the longer they wait.

Last Thursday on TNT’s Inside the NBA, Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal, who does not hold much say on the Kings' personnel despite being a minority owner, suggested that Cousins could be dealt. “He hasn’t shown great leadership qualities yet,” O’Neal said. “One of the best centers in the league, this cat can do it all. … But he’s a hothead. If they want to make a run, he’s going to have to be a leader.”

O’Neal, however, said he did not think that Cousins can fill that role. “He hasn’t shown me hose leadership qualities yet,” O’Neal said. “That’s why I’m hearing talk of, if things don’t start to become correct then they may be looking to go in a different direction.”

Pause here for a recap. In early 2012, Cousins was suspended by the Kings, and word was he had demanded a trade from the Kings, which he later denied. Almost a year later, after a confrontation with new coach Keith Smart, Cousins was again suspended, and it was widely reported the Kings were close to dealing Cousins. In 2014, new owner Vivek Ranadive said publicly that “previous management” had advised him to trade Cousins. In the 2015 offseason, coach George Karl was reportedly talking with other teams about Cousins trade packages.

Among the teams mentioned in Cousins trade rumors in that span: Bulls, Nets, Celtics, Wizards, Mavericks, Pistons, Rockets, Nuggets, Magic, Hornets, Cavaliers, Bucks, Knicks, Raptors and Lakers. That’s more than half the league. If you’re a fan of an NBA team, then, it’s more likely than not that you’ve heard a connection between Cousins and your franchise in the last five years.

Yet he’s still a King.

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There have been two issues that have kept the Kings from actually moving Cousins, another NBA executive said. “You have one owner in Sacramento who does not want to give him up,” an Eastern Conference GM told SN. “And you have 29 other owners who don’t want to overpay because they are scared the guy is going to be a headache and is going to hurt the organization.”

The executive cited the Kings’ history of cycling through coaches as an example. The Kings are on their fifth non-interim coach in the last seven years, and while Cousins can’t be blamed entirely for that shoddy record, he certainly was at the heart of the dismissals of Paul Westphal, Karl and, to a lesser extent, Smart. “Owners are thinking about how much they’ve got to pay the coaches DeMarcus might get fired,” the East GM said.

The Kings just finished paying Mike Malone, fired 15 games into the second of a three-year, $9.4 million contract, last year, and still owed Karl $6.5 million when he was let go after last year. Again, that’s not all Cousins’ fault, but he’s been associated with multiple fired coaches who were still being paid, and owners don’t much like that.

On Sacramento’s side, the reluctance to talk about a move of Cousins in earnest is obvious. He’s one of the league’s most talented players, and the Kings want a similar raft of talent coming in return. They’re not going to get it, though, not with Cousins’ history and not with ongoing questions about his maturity—two weeks ago, Cousins was fined $25,000 by the league for throwing his mouthpiece and entering the stands.

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For the Kings to move on from Cousins, the gap between what Sacramento sees as its asset (a franchise player) and what other teams see as a gamble (a hot-headed non-leader) will have to be bridged. It’s more likely that will fall to the Kings scaling back on its expectations from a Cousins trade, not only because of Cousins’ negative, but also because of the fact that he will be in the last year of his contract next season.

“It is not going to happen unless the Kings cave a little,” the West GM said. “No one is going to give up too much for someone who might ruin your team’s chemistry this year, then ruin it next year when he is playing for free-agent money. If they don’t see that, then I don’t think it changes and I don’t think he goes anywhere. I don’t know that is good for them or for him, either. But that’s the reality.”