Minnesota Timberwolves star forward Kevin Love will stay in Midwestern state for the immediate future — he and his team has agreed to a four-year contract extension worth a reported $60-62 million million.

According to ESPN, the deal gives the 23-year-old the option to opt out of his contract in the fourth year if he doesn’t like the direction of the team. Love wanted a five year contract, but accepted the four-year deal with the option on the last year.

Via the deal, Love will stay with the Timberwolves, at least, through the summer of 2015.

“Did I want the five years? Of course,” Love said this week. “It was something I felt strongly about, but at the end of the day, a four-year deal is still great.

“I like the direction the team is headed,” he continued. “I like the youth. I like the pieces, like we’re knocking at the door and we’re close in a lot of games.”

Before the deal was announced, a post on Love’s verified Twitter page (@KevinLove) hinted that it was all but complete: “To #twolves fans: I’ll be in Minnesota for 4 more years! Excited to see you when I get back to Minneapolis.”

ESPN says that Love was eligible for a five-year, $80 million extension — which the Oklahoma City Thunder awarded guard Russell Westbrook last week. But the Wolves refused to budge on their offer, said reports. It would’ve made him Minnesota’s “designated player.” Based on the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, every team is allowed to have one “designated player”, who receives a five-year maximum extension on his rookie contract.

Love has emerged as the new face of the franchise who hasn’t had a star since Kevin Garnett (who was traded to the Celtics in 2007).

The Minnesota star is currently averaging 24.9 points and 13.9 rebounds per game. If he finishes the season with those averages, he’d be the first player to do so since Moses Malone in 1981-82.

By Jon Krawczynski, Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS — Kevin Love watched friends Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook sign five-year extensions this season and was ready to do the same with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

As the clock ticked down toward the deadline, it became abundantly clear that owner Glen Taylor and president of basketball operations David Kahn didn’t want to go that far.

So the two sides found a middle ground.

Love signed a four-year maximum extension Wednesday worth more than $60 million that allows him to opt out after three years.

The deal offers the financial flexibility and protection from injury that the Timberwolves were seeking while giving the 23-year-old Love the freedom to become an unrestricted free agent in 2015 if he so chooses.

“Did I want the five years? Of course,” Love said on a conference call from Dallas before the short-handed Wolves beat the Mavericks 105-90. “It was something I felt strongly about. But at the end of the day, a four-year deal is still great.”

Love is showing that he is worth every penny this season, including in the game against defending champion Dallas when he scored 31 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and hit 4 of 6 3-pointers in 43 minutes.

Under the new collective bargaining agreement, teams can offer one player on their roster a five-year deal with annual raises of 7.5 percent, which is one year longer and three percentage points higher than any other team can offer.

Love has emerged as the new face of the franchise in the post-Kevin Garnett era, an All-Star who led the NBA in rebounding last season and is off to an even better start this year. He is averaging 25.2 points, 13.7 rebounds and leads the league with 39.6 minutes per game.

“He’s the key of this team. He’s our leader,” point guard Ricky Rubio said. “We appreciate what he does on the court. It’s great for us.”

Coupled with the additions of coach Rick Adelman and Rubio, Love has helped form a promising foundation. Still, Love can leave if he doesn’t like the direction the organization is headed in three years.

“The early termination keeps my options open and I want to see where this team is going to head,” Love said. “I feel that we are (on the right track), and that we’ll get there. … I’m looking at this as a four-year deal and we’ll go from there.”

With this grueling, lockout-shortened season still only a quarter of the way finished, Kahn said he and Taylor felt that extending a player even as accomplished as Love for five years was more than they were comfortable doing.

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love suggested the NBA lockout could hurt his team more than others.

“It’s going to be tough to really get our team on the same page because we have such a young group of guys, a young unit of guys, where we’re the youngest team in the NBA with a new coach,” Love said at a promotional event at Santa Monica sports bar South.

Love, an All-Star who led the league in rebounds last season, intimated that other teams could perhaps better weather the storm.

“Teams like the Lakers, teams like the Dallas Mavericks and teams like the Boston Celtics, they have veteran players who somewhat need the rest in the off-season, a team that knows each other, has the chemistry, have played with each other.

“They’ll kind of jump into the season when the season is started and the lockout is finished, and jump off where they were last year. With a team like us, we need time on the floor together.”

Love was not the only player to express concern about the lockout.

Clippers forward Blake Griffin, who missed the 2009 season after sustaining a broken left kneecap in the final preseason game, seemed peeved that he’s once again being kept off of the court.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Griffin, who was Rookie of the Year last season. “I think it’s frustrating for all the players. We all want to be out there. We want to be playing.”

— Melissa Rohlin