With just under three weeks remaining until the NBA trade deadline, the rumors and speculation is starting to swirl, and the Dallas Mavericks seem to be involved in many of them.

Currently, the Mavs sit as the No. 6 team in the Western Conference, but to truly enter contender status among the top teams in the league, Dallas needs to amp up its defense on the perimeter.

On Wednesday, Yahoo! Sports’ Jake Fischer reported that while the Mavs had conversations with Toronto regarding Pascal Siakam before he was traded to the Indiana Pacers, there remains to be several veteran forwards that Dallas has its eye on, including an ‘old friend

“The Mavericks continue to be linked to various versatile forwards, from Andrew Wiggins to P.J. Washington to old friend Dorian Finney-Smith, according to league sources,” Fischer wrote.

For the Mavs, when the Kyrie Irving trade was made, it felt as if the city of Dallas was almost equally excited for Irving’s arrival and upset for DFS’s departure — that’s how much the MFFL’s and the Mavs’ organization loved Finney-Smith.

On the season, Finney-Smith is averaging 9.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game while shooting a career-high 40.1 percent from downtown in just under 29 minutes per game. Needless to say, he’d still fit in like a glove in Dallas.

Though the Mavs may have interest in reuniting with Finney-Smith, they’ll be one of many teams in the market for the eight-year veteran who can fill a 3-and-D need for any contending team. With that in mind, what would be the cost for Dallas to bring Finney-Smith back?

HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto reported last week that in a trade for Finney-Smith, the Nets want the ‘equivalent of two first-round picks.’

For Dallas, two first-round picks for Finney-Smith feels like too high of a price to pay, especially considering that a 2029 first-round pick was attached to him in order to get Irving on the Mavs. But, Dallas could offer Brooklyn a choice of Grant Williams or Richaun Holmes for salary filler along with either Jaden Hardy or O-Max Prosper and one future first-round pick … or perhaps even a pick swap.

If the Mavs could shed the contracts of either Williams or Holmes along with keeping their preference of Hardy or Prosper, bringing back Finney-Smith at that cost feels like a worthy investment. Let’s see how the market plays out over the next few weeks.