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There’s a familiar pattern that usually plays out whenever someone on a 10-day contract makes enough of an impression for his team to keep him around. The team signs him to a second 10-day contract within a few days of the expiration of the first, in most such cases. The same is true if a team decides to keep the player for the balance of the season, as a deal typically follows in quick succession. But, as we saw with the Pelicans and Toney Douglas, who wound up with a rest-of-season deal Tuesday after the team had seemingly moved on from him, that’s not always the case.

Douglas signed the first of his two 10-day contracts with the Pelicans on February 4th, and while the Pelicans took a few days after it expired to sign him to 10-day deal No. 2 on February 18th, that wasn’t really out of the ordinary. However, the Pelicans terminated that second 10-day deal the very next day as they swung a pair of trade deadline swaps. They emerged from deadline day with an open roster spot, but instead of re-signing Douglas, they picked up Elliot Williams on a 10-day contract, and signed him to another the day after the first expired. The day after that second 10-day deal for Williams expired, the Pelicans gave out a deal for the rest of the season — not to Williams, but to Douglas, who had been off the roster for more than a month.

The team has reportedly decided against signing Williams to a deal that covers the balance of 2014/15, even though the Pelicans still have an open roster spot following the Douglas deal. It’s unclear what led New Orleans to make such a move, but it’s not unprecedented. Holdups have stalled but not prevented deals involving a few other 10-day signees across the NBA this season. Hoops Rumors learned that a desire to retain flexibility for a possible trade kept the Heat from signing Tyler Johnson to a second 10-day contract for a week after his first one expired. There was no such delay when Miami re-signed him to a multiyear deal the day after his second 10-day pact was up. The specter of would-be trades appeared to hold sway when the Grizzlies waited to sign JaMychal Green for a week after his first 10-day contract with the team expired. He signed his second on February 19th, the day of the trade deadline, and inked a multiyear pact of his own shortly after the second 10-day expired. A similar dynamic was seemingly at play with James McAdoo, who signed his second 10-day contract with the Warriors on February 2nd, just a few days after his first had expired. He, like Green, signed his next contract, a multiyear deal, on the day of the deadline.

An injury concern was apparent as the Clippers hesitated to re-sign Jordan Hamilton when his second 10-day deal was up, but the team ultimately gave him a multiyear deal after he languished for five days. There was a much larger gap between the first and second 10-day contracts Jack Cooley signed with the Jazz. Utah signed Jerrelle Benimon to a 10-day contract in between the time of Cooley’s deals, much as the Pelicans turned to Williams while Douglas was away. The day after Benimon’s deal expired, Cooley was back with the Jazz. Today’s the final day of Cooley’s second 10-day deal, so we’ll soon find out whether there’ll be another gap.

People around the NBA often use the term “team option” in reference to a year that’s covered by non-guaranteed salary, but there are key differences. Front offices have to make decisions on a team option for a season before the July 1st preceding that season, but they can wait until opening night to make a decision on a player with a non-guaranteed season without having to shell out any salary, and until the leaguewide guarantee date in January without having to pony up the full salary. Partial guarantees mitigate this advantage to some degree, and contracts often have specific dates well in advance of the leaguewide guarantee date that specify a full or partial amount must be paid to the player if he remains under contract. Still, those deals are almost always more flexible than team options, which helps explains why team options are as rare as they are.

All rookie scale contracts, by rule, include two team options for the final season, and the decision on each is due a year ahead of time. Only five non-rookie scale contracts include team options for next season. A few more are on the books for 2016/17 and 2017/18. Some of them involve salary that’s non-guaranteed as well, since the collective bargaining agreement allows team option years to remain non-guaranteed even after the option is exercised. Thus, some executives have found value in signing second-round picks and undrafted rookies to four-year deals that include dual team options and non-guaranteed salary for the fourth year. That gives teams the choice of making the player a restricted free agent after year three or an unrestricted free agent after year four, as I examined a while back. That strategy backfired this past summer for the Rockets, who declined their team option on Chandler Parsons to make him a restricted free agent only to watch him sign an offer sheet for nearly the maximum salary.

Still, others, most notably the Sixers and GM Sam Hinkie, continue to sign similar deals. And occasionally, front offices will consent to team options for veteran talent, perhaps because their agents push to avoid the threat of a release without pay hanging over their clients for months. Perhaps that’s why Michael Beasley emerged with a team option on his multiyear deal with the Heat, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reported last week.

Here’s a look at the five players with team options for next season, in descending order of value.

• Jordan Hill (Lakers), $9MM
• Timofey Mozgov (Cavaliers), $4.95MM
• Kostas Papanikolaou (Rockets), $4.798MM — also non-guaranteed
• Marreese Speights (Warriors), $3.815MM
• Michael Beasley (Heat), $1.271MM

And here are those with team options for future seasons, in descending order of value:

• Lance Stephenson (Hornets), $9.405MM — 2016/17
• Furkan Aldemir (Sixers), $2.81MM — 2017/18, also non-guaranteed
• Damjan Rudez (Pacers), $1.199MM — 2016/17
• Robert Covington (Sixers), $1.088MM — 2017/18, also non-guaranteed
• Jerami Grant (Sixers), $1.051MM — 2017/18, also non-guaranteed
• JaKarr Sampson (Sixers), $1.051MM — 2017/18, also non-guaranteed
• Mike Muscala (Hawks), $1.016MM — 2016/17, also non-guaranteed
• Hollis Thompson (Sixers), $1.016MM — 2016/17, also non-guaranteed

The Basketball Insiders salary pages and RealGM were used in the creation of this post.