Zach Lowe wrote an article on Grantland pertaining to the Rookie Class of 2012 and their pending eligibility to agree to "early contract extensions". The entire article can be found here, or check it out in the FanShot that I posted.

Evan Fournier, who was the 20th pick in the 2012 draft, is obviously a young and intriguing swingman on Orlando's roster who is technically eligible to sign an extension with the Magic in the upcoming months. Specifically, 1st round picks entering the final year of their rookie deals can accept an extension from their respective teams, but the new deal MUST be agreed upon by October 31st. Of course, Magic fans should be familiar with this process, Nik Vucevic agreed to an early extension with Orlando last October prior to the 2014-15 season.

In Vucevic's case, many basketball experts were very surprised that Nik and his camp agreed to a deal ultimately prior to his free agency year even beginning. Knowing what we all now know about the money that was thrown around this summer in Free Agency, the Magic saved anywhere upwards of $15-20M throughout the life of Nik's contract by coming to an extension agreement last October.

That negotiation was a big win for Orlando, but I'm not convinced the organization will be inclined at all to extend Evan Fournier. Fournier is a nice player, I'm not down on him at all. However, I'm thinking the Magic may want to see Fournier one more season before they're convinced to commit to him long term. His play was pretty strong throughout the first month of the season last year, but was wildly inconsistent thereafter (due to injuries, role on the team, etc.).

Fournier is still very young, I believe his best basketball is still in front of him and yet to come. If Orlando is ready to take the next step as an organization, Fournier is probably the type of versatile player the team needs around. I don't foresee him being a star on a contending team, but he certainly can grow into a 6th or 7th man off the bench/scorer. Winning teams need those type of guys.

In not so many words, Zach Lowe basically has the same assessment of Fournier's future in the NBA and fit in Orlando:

"He shouldn’t ever start for a good team, but Fournier is a career 38 percent 3-point shooter with some playmaking guile and the guts to sport ridiculous hairstyles. Use him as a primary ball handler and your offense is toast. Stick him on the wing while someone else does the heavy drive-and-kick lifting, and Fournier can do damage slicing into a scrambled defense. He can play multiple positions on both ends, though he probably tops out as an average defender.

He’s just a useful guy to have around, and useful guys are about to get a ton of money. Orlando should see what it would take to preempt that, even if it starts throwing around numbers near the $7 million-per-year deal Jae Crowder just signed with Boston."

So I expressed my doubts that Fournier would be extending by November, but I wrote this FanPost to gauge everyone else's thoughts. Would Fournier's camp consider an early agreement, or would it behoove them to let Evan play out 2015-16 and see what type of contract he can earn next summer? Should the Magic consider attempting to sign Fournier early? If they commit now, they could save themselves some money...let's not forget that the salary cap is due to spike 20-30 million dollars in the next couple years. Or do they wait? Fournier will be a RFA, so the Magic could always match an offer-sheet next summer if they do decide by then to retain Fournier. But at what price - teams will have some serious bank to throw at players. Mario Hezonja is also in the mix now, and he basically plays the same position as Fournier. Can both guys coexist longterm? Or is Evan expendable?

For the sake of the exercise (so the discussion is on point), let's say Orlando decides to sit down and negotiate with Evan Fournier before training camp. What type of (ballpark) numbers should Orlando be offering? Here are some shooting guards/small forwards that came off the bench for their respective teams and produced similar numbers in 2014-15 to Fournier (with their salaries):

J.R. Smith (2014-15 salary: 6.5M, Note: Keep in mind, Smith opted out this summer in search of more $)
Jodie Meeks (2014-15 salary: 6M)
Jared Dudley (2014-15 salary: 4.25M)
Marco Belinelli (Just signed 3/19M w/ Sacramento)
Gerald Henderson (2014-15 salary: 6M)
O.J. Mayo (2014-15 salary: 8M)

It seems the market for Fournier's type-services is currently around $6-7M/year. When accounting for the inflated league-wide salaries to come in the near future, I'm thinking a 4 year/28-30M contract would make sense to me for an offer to Evan Fournier.

That is if I wanted it to happen, which I don't. Or do I, have I talked myself into it?