At the trade deadline the New Orleans Hornets had some discussions about trades for shooting guard Eric Gordon, but nothing came of it. Not surprising — it’s not easy to move a guy on a max contract coming off knee surgery.

But after an up and down season where he averaged 16.5 points on 40.2 percent shooting with a pedestrian PER of 15.2 — and got into a sideline shouting match with coach Monty Williams on Friday — the Hornets are going to try again to see what interest there is in him, reports the Times-Picayune.

The Hornets were unable to pull off a trade involving Gordon before the February trade deadline, but the franchise is still likely to remain open to trading him after this season ends, according to sources Saturday.

His last season with the Clippers, Gordon averaged 22.3 points on 45 percent shooting, he had a PER of 18.5 and looked like one of the best young guards in the game. He put up similar numbers with the Hornets after the Chris Paul trade for nine games until his knee injury that had him out the rest of last season and the start of this one.

But in there Gordon lost the New Orleans fans — he signed a max offer sheet from Phoenix them publically asked New Orleans not to match because his “heart was in Phoenix.” Gordon let business become personal — the Hornets were letting the market set Gordon’s price always with the intention of matching but Phoenix wooed him and Gordon took it as how much more they wanted him. The comment turned off the New Orleans fans, as did his slow recovery from knee issues and going back to Los Angeles to recover when the Hornets would have preferred he stay with the team.

It’s likely he is with the team next year; it will be hard to move him as he has had the knee issues and is owed $45 million over three years. On paper he and Anthony Davis should be the young future of this team, but Davis is the focus now and the team will look at moving on from the Gordon era.