Current rumours say that he's leaning towards going, and the Bulldogs are the main party. So the Carlton focus being entirely based on one Journo's comments might be putting the cart before the horse.
On the ban, even if they get a 2 year penalty they'll barely miss more than one season. Half more than Tippett (who had a confirmed ban). The first 6 months of suspended sentence counts, so any ban would be only 1.5 years maximum (from that point). If the decision is in October (say) then any player banned would miss one season, and be available the following April. And that's the maximum penalty, they could easily have a lesser penalty if found guilty given their circumstances. A one year ban would have them available April 2015 after subtracting the suspended sentence period. So the odds are that in reality they will miss at most one year, or just one-preseason, with a good chance they'll receive no penalty (after all, found not guilty once already). Whereas Tippett who had a certain half-year ban found it didn't impact his price at all.