Rick Noland | The Gazette

INDEPENDENCE — Cleveland sports fans aren’t the only people agonizing over whether LeBron James will sign a contract extension with the Cavaliers this summer.

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who held a brief question-and-answer session with the media Wednesday at Cleveland Clinic Courts, has that same anxiety.

“If you think you’re nervous,” Gilbert said, stopping in midsentence to a loud round of laughter. “Now that’s going to be (taken) out of context.”

Turning serious, the team owner added: “We feel very confident this franchise, with the direction it’s going and the things we’re doing, will make it the best place to play basketball for our current players, LeBron James, our future players or anybody else. That’s all we can do.”

Most NBA experts don’t expect James to sign an extension this summer, theorizing the 24-year-old will opt out of the final year of his deal following the 2009-10 season and become an unrestricted free agent, but Gilbert is optimistic.

Even if James doesn’t sign an extension this summer, the Cavaliers will still be able to offer him a longer and larger contract than any other team in 2010. No one knows for sure what the salary cap will be, but Cleveland will be able to offer James a six-year deal in the neighborhood of $130 million, while the handful of clubs with significant cap room can offer a five-year deal for about $95 million.

“It takes two to make a contract,” Gilbert said. “We’ll make our best effort to make sure LeBron and anybody else we want to sign understands and knows all the great plans and all the opportunities we have here. We feel pretty good about it.”

Gilbert also touched on a variety of other subjects during the media session:

– On James, who is home and resting comfortably after a five-hour surgery on Tuesday to remove a benign growth near his jaw, not shaking hands with Orlando players following Cleveland’s elimination in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, then not showing up for a postgame press conference: “As you know now, there are a lot of things going on in that young man’s head. LeBron has given more interviews and been in the public and with the media probably more than any sports figure that exists today.

“(Maybe the reaction would have been different) if it was talked about before, but you don’t talk about those things before: What are you going to do if you lose? Nobody likes to think that way and nobody knows how they’re going to react at a very emotional time.

“Obviously, LeBron had a lot on his mind, as you know now. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody in this world is going to do 100 percent of the things that are looked upon as the right thing to do all the time. Overall, this guy has a pretty doggone good track record.”

Gilbert added he talked with NBA commissioner David Stern, who was not happy with James’ actions, and suggested the league adopt the NHL’s version of players lining up to shake hands following a game.

– On the season ending on a down note after a franchise-record 66 regular-season victories and eight straight wins to start the playoffs: “It ended in a disappointing manner. The franchise is not happy with what happened at the end. Nobody’s happy. (Coach) Mike Brown, (general manager) Danny Ferry, LeBron James, the players, the business people, myself, the ownership team — nobody’s satisfied, nobody’s happy. We certainly can’t say this was a highly successful, best season we’ve had in Cavaliers history.”

Gilbert said he and several other members of the ownership team spent Wednesday in meetings with Ferry and Brown, then added: “We’re not deterred in any way, shape or form. We will win a championship for Cleveland, Ohio. It’s going to happen. We don’t believe in any of this curse nonsense.”

– On his willingness to spend money, which included a $90 million team payroll this season but still resulted in the Cavaliers reaching what he called “the break-even neighborhood” overall: “Financially, we will spend what we feel gives us the best risk-return opportunity to win a championship. We don’t think you can buy a championship. It’s not a ‘money leads’ type of thing. You have to say, hey, I’m willing to invest ‘X’ to put us in the best possible light to win a championship.

“The dollars we’ve invested are a sufficient amount to win a championship. If we have to do more than that, we’ll do more than that. Whatever it takes.”

– On whether this will be the toughest offseason in his four-year reign as owner because it’s hard to improve after winning 66 games in the regular season: “There is no broad brush. There is no Holy Grail. There is no silver bullet out there. It’s just a lot of things.

“At the end of the day, until we get back to the Eastern Conference finals and get through it a year from now, we won’t know how good we did versus where we were (this year). We’re hoping to break through that.

“I actually feel very good about it that we will. There’s too many good players here, there’s too many good people in the front office, there’s too many good coaches for us not to continue to get better, and we will.”

– On his public support of legalized gambling in Ohio: “If people are going to gamble, they might as well do it here.”

– On his new partnership, which has yet to be ratified by the NBA, with a Chinese ownership conglomerate: “They bring a lot to the table.”

Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4061 or rickn@ohio.net.

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