Chris Kaman has been been a consummate professional since joining the Hornets, and, if we're being honest, he's really been a lot more than that. He's embraced the city entirely, taking in its various sights, interacting with users on the internet, showing interest in how fans watch the Hornets on television, and just generally being highly appreciative of a situation that was thrust on him abruptly and, it could be said, antagonistically.

It's why yesterday's announcement that the Hornets are actively looking to trade him is saddening, even if Kaman has only been with the team for a month. But here we are. Kaman has likely played his last game as a member of the New Orleans Hornets, as Dell Demps/David Stern attempt to find a suitable landing spot.

Yesterday, we were given some insight into potential trade partners:

Wojnarowski went onto clarify that the Jazz were interested at one point but that Kaman doesn't make too much sense in their loaded frontcourt now. Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix also corroborated the Houston Rockets' inclusion on the list, and also added that the Boston Celtics are interested but don't believe they have the pieces to get a deal done. Wojnarowski also noted later that the Hornets' current asking price is "draft picks, cap space, and a young player," something most teams have balked at.

We'll start today by looking at how a Chris Kaman to Houston trade could happen, and gradually work our way to the other teams over the next few days. Jump!

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The Hornets avoided their first double digit losing streak since the pre-Chris Paul era by knocking off the Magic.

Some notes after the jump.

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2011-12 NBA Regular Season
3-15	vs	12-6
January 27th, 2012
New Orleans Arena
7:00 PM CST
TV: CST, NBALP
Probable starters:
Jarrett Jack	>	Jameer Nelson
Marco Belinelli	=	Jason Richardson
Trevor Ariza	<	Hedo Turkoglu
Jason Smith	<	Ryan Anderson
Emeka Okafor	>	Dwight Howard

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[As we get closer to the draft, the Davis-Drummond-Robinson-Sullinger-Jones debate will start to heat up. I like those players in that order, but today, in the FanPosts, usnfish explains why he thinks Sullinger should be the top choice. - R]

It is generally accepted that the Power Forward position is the deepest in this draft. Andre Drummond (FR-Connecticut), Anthony Davis (FR-Kentucky), Jared Sullinger (SO-Ohio State), Perry Jones III (SO-Baylor) and Thomas Robinson (JR-Kansas) are all expected to go in the lottery. This is convenient since the Hornets do not have a PF of starting quality signed next year while GM Dell Demps has the other four positions solidified with Jarrett Jack, Eric Gordon (Hornets' fans hope), Trevor Ariza and Emeka Okafor under contract in 2012-2013. So which power forward is the best? And (this is important), which power forward fits the needs of the Hornets best? I think the answer to each question is different and will attempt to explain.

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As you've undoubtedly seen by now, the Hornets were unable to agree to a contract extension with Eric Gordon by yesterday's 11:59 EST deadline.

Where do we go from here? It's actually pretty straightforward.

Gordon becomes a restricted free agent when this season ends. At that time, he'll have three options. The first two go as follows:

(1) sign an offer sheet with another team

(2) agree to a new contract with the Hornets

If Gordon signs the offer sheet of another team, the Hornets have full matching rights; if they met the signing team's offer sheet, Gordon becomes a Hornet under the terms of that new deal. This happens relatively often. Most recently, the Golden State Warriors signed DeAndre Jordan to a lucrative offer sheet this past offseason, and the Los Angeles Clippers opted to match.

The maximum number of years another team could offer Eric Gordon is four years, $58M, an important figure. This is lower than the maximum four year salary of $62M New Orleans could have offered yesterday. Additionally, as owners of Gordon's Bird Rights, the Hornets would also have the option of offering the additional fifth year that no other team could. Keep in mind that a team may only offer one five-year deal within the current CBA period which expires in 2017.

Essentially, if Gordon was refusing to sign anything less than the 4 year, $58M figure yesterday, the breakdown in negotiations made perfect sense. The single advantage that negotiating an extension before the deadline provided was the opportunity to sign Gordon for below market value. It would have made minimal sense to offer him more than that, without at least allowing the market to dictate his true price over the summer.

So now we wait.

I'll reiterate once more that yesterday's result should in no way be taken as a sign that Gordon does not want to play in New Orleans long term. He and his agent simply believe that he's worth close to a full max deal (an idea I fully agree with) which is entirely reasonable.

But I'd be remiss to end this without mentioning the final option, of course:

(3) sign a one year qualifying offer with the Hornets, become an unrestricted FA in 2013

In this scenario, Gordon sacrifices millions and millions of dollars and long term financial security to make a mad dash out of the city. If it sounds farfetched, it's because it is. If the Hornets want Gordon this summer (and they will), the two sides will almost assuredly work things out.

Yesterday assured two things: the Hornets won't get a cut-rate deal for Gordon, and we'll have to live with that little lingering uncertainty in the backs of our minds for a bit longer.

As fans of a 3-15 team that has no owner, I have a hunch we'll get by.

That was BenDerDonDat's question during the game thread, one we unfortunately don't have an immediate answer for.

Teams like the Hornets aren't really supposed to exist at the professional level. A terrible basketball team, despite all of the hustle in the world, should get blown out. With regularity.

And it's not that this current side isn't terrible. I haven't seen a team make these types of turnovers, consistently, in a long while. The same players moving on screens, the same guys randomly choosing to pick up their dribble at half court, the same Aminu being freshly introduced to "dribbling" on a nightly basis. Assuming the first few teams the franchise put together get a pass, this is arguably the worst edition of the Hornets ever.

But for yet another game, the Hornets went up against a strong team (one that's supposedly the favorite to win the conference) and kept it close. It's an indictment of how awful Russell Westbrook was certainly, but it also fits within the larger Hornets schema - these guys won't get blown out often. They simply rebound too well (collecting 86% of all available defensive rebounds tonight) and fight too hard on defense (holding OKC to 3 points/100 poss. below their season average) to allow their utterly despicable offense to dictate final score lines.

It's what makes the Hornets a rather unique terrible team. After tonight, New Orleans pulls within a half game of the league's worst record, but the two teams ahead of them, Charlotte and Washington, boast efficiency differentials of negative 11.9 and 9.1. The Hornets are at negative 4.9, only the seventh worst mark in the league. Whether this portends good or bad things for the future is your call. Some game notes after the jump.

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In some well behaved, color-by-the-lines parallel universe, Eric Gordon, on account of being the league's most talented young 2-guard and, equally importantly, if redundantly, 23 years old, is signing off on a maximum extension today. Our universe, where teams exist without owners and losing is the best form of winning, is not that one.

Yet Gordon could well be signing a long term deal here too, even if both player and contract are ultimately diminished by the health of Gordon's right knee.

The deal on the table today is for four years; its consummation would represent not only the official arrival of the team's first post-Paulian star but a significant step towards long term stability for basketball in New Orleans. Of course, the restricted free agency provision of the rookie scale contract assures that today's worst case scenario - failure to agree terms of an extension - doesn't necessitate long term doom. But signing Gordon in advance of an RFA season that will surely see at least one aggressive overture from the Indiana Pacers carries with it rather obvious advantages.

What, then, is a healthy Eric Gordon worth?

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