Bobcats to explore sign and trade with Gerald Henderson, Yahoo reports

The Charlotte Bobcats have been unable to come to a mutually acceptable agreement with restricted free agent Gerald Henderson, leading to the team examining sign-and-trade options.

Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski reported the news late Wednesday night, noting that multiple teams are interested.

The Bobcats agreed to extend an approximate $4.3 million qualifying offer to Henderson weeks ago.

Since the offseason began, the Bobcats have added talent to their weakest points via the draft and free agency with Cody Zeller, Al Jefferson and re-signing Josh McRoberts. They have also amnestied Tyrus Thomas, leaving open a bit of space to possibly add to Henderson's offer if need be to match any offers from other teams, as is provided in the CBA for restricted free agents.

With this development, it's a little disappointing to hear for some. Henderson's improved in many regards since his rookie season, especially offensively. Retaining Henderson appeared to be the only remaining major goal left for the Bobcats. With no reports of other teams making offer sheets, it seems Henderson isn't drawing much interest or interested teams do not have the cap space to make an offer that the Bobcats would not match. But the Bobcats are not making an offer Henderson would like, leading to this impasse. With an agreement for a sign-and-trade the Bobcats would get at least something for Henderson's value and interested teams could make room for his signing.

The other options are A) Henderson agrees to take the qualifying offer the Bobcats have made, which would effectively give him another year with the Bobcats before he enters unrestricted free agency in 2014 or B) the Bobcats rescind their qualifying offer, making Henderson an unrestricted free agent now. The latter is extremely unlikely unless Henderson poops in Michael Jordan's desk.