Roundup of deadline deals, non-deals

Brief takes on the major contract extensions/non-extensions on Wednesday:

Eric Gordon may prove worth the max at some point. (Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images)

• Eric Gordon turned down the Hornets’ four-year offer.

Here’s the backdrop we’re working with here: Roughly half the league’s teams can work their way this summer to enough cap room to fit a max-level contract, though several of those teams would have to use the amnesty clause and/or renounce the rights to their own free agents to make it happen. Take the Pacers, for instance: Their lust for Gordon, an Indy native, is no secret around the league. On the surface, they have the money to offer Gordon a max-level four-year deal, worth about $60 million, and thus rob the Hornets of one of the two prized assets (the other being Minnesota’s first-round pick) they received in the Chris Paul deal.

But there are complicating factors: The combined cap holds attached to restricted free agents Roy Hibbert and George Hill add more than $10 million in artificial charges to the Pacers’ payroll, giving Indiana about $46 million in “salary” for 2012-13 — and not quite enough room to offer Gordon the max, unless the salary cap jumps higher than expected. The Pacers could get rid of those holds by renouncing the rights to Hibbert and Hill, but doing so means losing the ability to match competing offers for those guys.

Still, the Pacers could make a decent run at Gordon, as could lots of other teams with cap room and a potential need at the position. But none can offer quite as much money as the Hornets, who can also add an extra fifth year. And New Orleans can of course match any offer sheet another team lavishes upon Gordon. You can’t blame the Hornets if they tried to retain Gordon for something less than the maximum annual amount on a four-year deal — and if they resisted using their “designated player” label on Gordon and offering the fifth year such players may receive on contract extensions. Gordon may prove worth the max at some point, but he has played at that level for about 2 1/2 months in the NBA, with injuries having cost him so much time. The world praised the Celtics for retaining Rajon Rondo at a below-market deal; why should the Hornets not try to do the same here, given their matching rights? It might irritate Gordon, but he’s not quite as valuable as …

• The Timberwolves re-signed Kevin Love to a max-level four-year deal, with the fourth year as a player option.

You can spin this any way you like, but the general result is this: The best young power forward in the league, already among the league’s 12 to 15 best players, has negotiated the LeBron James/Dwyane Wade/Chris Bosh-style three-year mini-max. It’s impossible to judge how any deal will look three and four years down the road, but Love is a star, and the general idea is to keep your stars for as long as possible. Ask the Raptors, Cavaliers, Magic, Hornets and Jazz (doing fine now, I know) whether they’d have liked an extra year to figure out the right course of action with their franchise players.

Love admitted on Wednesday he wanted the fifth season the Wolves could offer by making him their designated player, and only pushed for the fourth-year option after the team refused to go that route. I’m on record as saying the Wolves were well within reason to keep as much financial flexibility as possible going forward in negotiating with Love now. This is the point of matching rights and the leverage teams have in restricted free agency. But that reasoning goes out the window, to some degree, once you realize you have irked your franchise player.

The Wolves have three years to prove themselves to Love, and the story coming out of Minnesota on Thursday is that the shorter deal will push the front office to work harder and do better over those three years. Here’s the reality: The front office is already working its tail off, and Love’s deal leaves the Wolves with middling cap room this summer, no first-round pick of their own (the Hornets own it, though Minnesota owns the rights to a lottery-protected Utah pick), one high-priced restricted free agent who is not cutting it (Michael Beasley) and one top-five pick who looks like a bust (Wesley Johnson). Minnesota could in theory whittle its way down to about $51 million in committed salary, but that involves a lot of gymnastics and wouldn’t put them in position to sign a major impact player this summer. That changes in 2014, but Minnesota hasn’t exactly been a free-agent magnet. If Derrick Williams doesn’t develop into very good player very soon, the short-term upside here might be limited.

Locking up Love for three years is better than nothing, and it preserves the designated player label for Ricky Rubio, who has looked very nice in 18 NBA games. Everything may turn out just fine; it’s impossible to tell now. But the Wolves missed a chance here.

• The Nuggets re-signed Danilo Gallinari to a four-year, $42 million deal.

You can cherry-pick contracts around the league to use in comparison with deals like Gallinari’s in order to make them look bad (he makes almost as much as Rondo!) or genius (he’ll make the same money as Richard Jefferson!). Bottom line: There is some risk here, as there is in all big-money contracts for young players, but Gallinari’s play this season suggests he should be able to live up to this deal — or at least come close. He looks to have kicked the nagging back injuries, and he has developed into a multi-dimensional offensive player capable of scoring in isolation, running a pick-and-roll, making smart passes and (as he showed last season) getting to the line at superstar-level rates.

Gallinari came into the league as a three-point sniper, but he has rarely been able to be a long-range ace and a foul-drawing machine at the same time. If he can learn to be both, he’s going to be a beast, and even shooting just 31.6 percent from three this season, he’s still spacing the floor and putting up an All-Star-level Player Efficiency Rating. He’s proven an engaged, feisty on-ball defender with smart feet, and his off-ball defense should catch up to his on-ball work eventually. The ability to play both forward spots is a huge asset, especially under George Karl, and it will become an even bigger asset as Gallo gets more comfortable playing both parts of the pick-and-roll.

There is risk here, and the deal commits Denver to its Ty Lawson/Nene/Gallinari core going forward. Toss in the $9 million deal the Nuggets gave Kosta Koufos late Wednesday, and Denver’s payroll for 2012-13 is already into the $55 million range — before accounting for Wilson Chandler. That drops to about $40 million the following season, but that number doesn’t include Al Harrington’s full deal or money for Lawson’s extension.

So Denver is going with this “no star” thing, and that’s fine. It’s working, and all of these guys are tradeable assets.

• New Jersey passed on extending Brook Lopez.

The expected outcome, given all the uncertainties here — Deron Williams’ massive player option, the team’s goal of trading for Dwight Howard and/or preserving enough room to sign him as a free agent, and Lopez’ broken foot. New Jersey had little reason to throw a lot of money at a very good young big man on whom they retain matching rights. Lopez will get paid over the summer, one way or the other.

• The Magic passed on extending Ryan Anderson.

Anderson is a bit like last season’s Love in that his giant uptick in production is exactly in line with what he was doing in more limited minutes last season. If he keeps playing like this, some team will probably toss big money at him, and the Magic will have the right to match. Magic GM Otis Smith admitted rather bluntly on Wednesday that this strategy could backfire, with Orlando having to pay more for Anderson this summer than they would have paid on Wednesday.

Orlando fans are frustrated with the inaction, given that the team recently committed $50 million over the next four seasons to two less productive players — Jason Richardson and Glen Davis. Without those moves, the Magic could have positioned themselves for a scenario in which they could have kept Dwight Howard and carved out a decent chunk of cap room in the event Anderson walked. That was unlikely, sure, especially since it would involve parting with J.J. Redick (on a non-guaranteed deal for 2012-13), but the Davis/Richardson contracts are the sort of mid-level deals that handicap your flexibility. Richardson fills a need, but Orlando had the cheaper Brandon Bass on hand to back up Anderson at power forward.

Regardless, everything is in limbo here until the Howard situation sorts itself out.

Roy Hibbert has refined his moves, but he still needs work. (J. Dennis/Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

• The Pacers passed on extending Roy Hibbert and George Hill.

No major harm, no major foul. Hibbert is a solid player having his best season, showing off refined post moves with both hands, pushing his game closer to the hoop and serving as the focal point of Indiana’s offense for stretches of every game. He’s a decent defender but not a great one, and it’s hard to imagine any of the cap-room teams going crazy and tossing him a max-level deal. Hibbert seems destined for one of those big-man contracts that falls between $9 million and $12 million, regardless of whether Indiana gives it to him now or later. You can’t blame the Pacers if they chased a deal in the cheaper range, since they have matching rights; Hibbert isn’t Love.

As for Hill, it’s clear by now that he’s not a point guard, even if he can run a pick-and-roll in a pinch and handle the ball if necessary. He’s just not a dynamic penetrator/passer. He is a very nice two-way nice combo guard with proven three-point range, long arms and an unselfish team-first mentality. But with Darren Collison, Paul George and Danny Granger all ahead of him in the wing/guard pecking order, it makes sense for Indiana to play it out with Hill, even if the two sides were only $1.5 million or so apart by Wednesday night. It’d hurt to lose him, but Indiana has to take care of Hibbert and keep the cap sheet as clean as possible going forward.

• The Trail Blazers and Nicolas Batum failed to agree.

This might be the diciest situation of the entire bunch. Batum in many ways is having the best season of his career, but he’s also playing seven fewer minutes per game than last season. Gerald Wallace’s play has complicated things, even as Batum has displayed a little more of the scoring aggression Portland fans long requested of him. He’s getting to the line more, shooting the three well (40 percent) and using a slightly higher percentage of Portland’s possessions without turning the ball over. He remains a very good defender of multiple positions, and he’s a valuable wing rebounder.

That said, Batum still hasn’t brought it all together with any consistency. He has never looked in the NBA like the offensive threat he was this summer for France at EuroBasket. It’s in there, somewhere, and it will probably emerge with consistency at some point, especially given more playing time. In related news: Wallace’s deal includes only a $9.5 million player option for next season, and both Wallace and the Blazers have to decide what to do going forward. Even with Wallace at $9.5 million, the Blazers, having amnestied Brandon Roy, could in theory have max-level cap room this summer, depending on Greg Oden’s future, how long they carry Batum’s cap hold and whether Jamal Crawford declines his cheap-ish player option.

There are just so many ways Portland could go. The team negotiated with Batum right up until Wednesday’s deadline, so they are clearly interested at the right price. Letting Batum into restricted free agency could jack up that price, but as is the case with Hibbert, it’s difficult to imagine the price getting jacked up to a level that would really make Portland uncomfortable.

• The Wizards passed on extending JaVale McGee.

The Wizards wisely followed the same path they used with Nick Young last season. McGee has solid per-minute numbers, but you don’t hand out anything like a big-money deal to a player with so many question marks until you see what the market will pay. McGee has the length and athleticism to be a difference-maker on both ends, but his game is still miles from that level, even if he is making slow progress in the post and as a defensive rebounder. Everything is still so raw and uncoordinated — the uncertain post moves, the shaky defensive positioning, the endless goal-tends and the inability to draw many free throws or hit them at an acceptable rate. McGee has been a part of the problem in Washington, even if he looks in flashes like part of the solution.

Tall centers with long arms and elite shot-blocking ability get paid, and the Wizards could have (in theory) enough cap room for two max players if they use the amnesty provision on Rashard Lewis. That doesn’t mean you bid against yourselves for such an unproven commodity.

• The Rockets passed on Jonny Flynn, Courtney Lee, Hasheem Thabeet and Terrence Williams.

Easy calls, with the possible exception of Lee, who brings a combination of defense, three-point shooting and the ability to play both wing positions. But by going this route, the Rockets could get right to the edge of max-level cap room, depending on where the cap falls and whether they keep matching rights on Lee and a few other variables. Buying out the final year of Samuel Dalembert’s deal for $1.5 million would finish the job — and then some — but the Rockets like the size and rebounding Dalembert brings.

Regardless, none of these four players have shown enough to justify sacrificing cap flexibility.

• The Knicks exercised their $2.1 million option on Toney Douglas.

Douglas has been awful this season, and New York fans have made him a scapegoat for the team’s poor start. But the Knicks are going to be over the cap regardless, and with no point guard around, it makes perfect sense to keep Douglas as cheap insurance — even if he’s struggled to play the position this season. He is better than he’s shown, and the Knicks are still set to be way below the luxury tax, meaning they’ll have the full mid-level exception to toss at a better point guard. You know which one.

The Grizzlies may miss O.J. Mayo if they don't get more help via internal development or a trade. (AP)

• The Grizzlies declined to extend O.J. Mayo.

Mayo is caught in a salary squeeze. Memphis has nearly $63 million committed for next season, and that doesn’t include Mayo’s cap hold, or any salary for Sam Young, Darrell Arthur or Marreese Speights. Committing so much money to the Rudy Gay/Zach Randolph/Marc Gasol/Mike Conley core was always going to carry a price for a small-market team that won’t exceed the luxury tax by more than a token amount.

Mayo is a fine complementary player who is shooting the three at an elite level this season and has turned into a demon off-the-ball cutter. The Grizzlies need floor-spacing badly, and they’ll miss Mayo’s shooting if they don’t get more via internal development and/or a trade. But you can’t have everything.

• The Bobcats picked up Gerald Henderson’s $3.1 million team option.

A no-brainer. The Bobcats are still set to have plenty of cap room, and Henderson is a bargain at this price. The only question is whether Charlotte will make itself a max-level player this summer by using the amnesty provision on DeSagana Diop.