Suns may have to wait a bit for decision on Eric Gordon

Restricted free agent Eric Gordon signed his offer sheet
with the Suns Wednesday, giving the New Orleans Hornets
three days to decide on whether or not they want to match
the deal.

And, according to ESPN NBA insider Marc Stein, there’s a
good chance they’ll use all of their allotted time.

Hornets now have 3
days to match EGordon offer sheet. They definitely will
but early indications I get is they’ll make PHX wait full
3 days

— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July
11, 2012

That would give the Hornets until sometime Saturday,
though since they’ve maintained all along that they plan
to match, it’s interesting that they would wait as long as
possible to make it official.

After all, Gordon has been consistent in talking about his
desire to leave New Orleans, so making him wait as long as
possible to know where he’ll be playing next season is not
likely to go over well with him. The Suns probably won’t
appreciate the move, either.

Maybe the Hornets will wait all 72 hours out of spite, to
Gordon for wanting to leave and the Suns for trying to
lure him away. Or, perhaps, they are really unsure of what
they’ll be doing with the player, and need a little extra
time to decide.

One other possibility, which has been brought up by our
commenters (good looking out), is that the Hornets may be
waiting to see if
they can add some players before officially committing to
pay Gordon the max contract.

No matter what the reason — or what they do — we’ll know
by Saturday at the latest.

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