Baron Davis opts out. Could his next stop be Clipperville?

June 30, 8:15 PMGolden State Warriors ExaminerMatt Steinmetz

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Baron Davis opts out 

For Baron Davis to opt out of his contract with the Warriors and walk away from $17.8 million next season tells me one thing. Well, it tells me more than one thing but the most noteworthy thing it tells me is Davis probably has an offer in his back pocket from another team.

Like the Los Angeles Clippers.

Davis is way to savvy financially to forgo that kind of money without a pretty good assurance that he’s going to make a lot of that $17.8 million up this year, and plenty more over the next three or four years.

And the next three or four years is what this is about. Clearly the Warriors were reluctant to make the kind of financial commitment to Davis that Davis expected them to make. The calculation the Warriors made was that Davis didn’t have a whole lot of options except playing out the final year of his deal at a big figure.

Davis likely felt like he deserved more respect from Warriors management considering he led the franchise to its first playoff appearance in 13 years two years ago and followed it up by playing all 82 games in a 48-win season.

With Elton Brand opting out, all of a sudden Davis’ hometown Clippers have money. And it’s not outside the realm of possibility the Clippers could be sitting with both Davis and Brand by the end of the offseason.

You think it was a coincidence that Brand’s agent, David Falk, said that his client wants to see the Clippers make a commitment to winning before he re-signs. That commitment very well could be Baron Davis.

But where does that leave the Warriors? There’s little doubt this move has caught them by surprise.

It seems as if the Warriors have a couple of options and none of them are very good. They could suck it up and pay Davis the kind of money he thinks he deserves, but then again that’s what caused Davis to opt out in the first place.

A sign-and-trade? It would seem unlikely that the Warriors would do Davis any favors at this point.

There is only one legit point guard on the free agent market right now and it’s Gilbert Arenas. But he’s asking for a contract in excess of $100 million and that would be an awfully steep price to pay for a player injured much of last year.

Plus, a signing of that magnitude would hamper the Warriors when it came to dealing with their own restricted free agents, Monta Ellis and Andris Biedrins.

Maybe the Warriors will go out now and sign or trade for a point guard such Carlos Arroyo or Chris Duhon or Kyle Lowry.

Maybe Warriors VP of basketball operations Chris Mullin still has plenty of cards to play. But facts are facts and the offseason is off to a terrible start.