1. He's going to make $15M this year, a guaranteed year. He has a player option for $17M the next season. That's $32M for the next two years. He has absolutely nothing to complain about.
2. If he opts out of $17M next season, he will take a pay cut. No one can offer him $17M, no one WANTS to offer him $17M. I repeat: No one can outbid us for his services, assuming anyone even wants to try and get into such a battle.
3. Generalizations like "lets support him" are relatively meaningless in today's NBA. There is a salary cap that limits every team's assets, being stupid with your assets only ensures mediocrity or worse. We were barely a playoff team with him, we obviously need to add pieces around him. Giving him what he wants 3 years/$65M makes us a WORSE team- last I checked, we're all Warrior fans. Why would any fan want to do something thats not only unnecessary and illogical, but bad for the franchise?
4. His threat to opt-out DOES NOT MEAN HE IS LEAVING. It just means he hits the free agent market. As I said in #2, no one can out bid us, and we can go over the cap to keep him if it came to that (which it won't). Look at #1 again:  he's got TWO SEASONS LEFT including this one, so we can easily wait till next season to make a decision and negotiate again.
5. Chauncey Billups and Steve Nash average roughly $12M in annual salaries. Both have had more team success and health (and arguably, individual production) than Baron Davis. The only advantage Baron Davis has is age, which is more than mitigated by very, very legitimate health concerns. Explain to me why Baron Davis deserves twice as much money as those guys? Again...they got $12M; he wants over $20M. Does not compute.
6. This is posturing, plain and simple. The Warriors hold the cards, all the cards. The ONLY way for Baron to leave is to take a paycut; if he were willing to take a paycut, why wouldn't he just stick around here (where it would be a smaller paycut).

7. Let's say Baron Davis gets pissed off. What's he gonna do? Tank the season? Rip the team in public? What do you think THAT will do to his market value? The BEST thing for Baron to do is STFU, stay healthy, dominate the league like he did in the playoffs, take the Warriors into or beyond the 2nd round.

At that point, he re-interates his request for an extension while lowering his pricetag. In such a scenario, he would have brought the team continued success, alleviated injury concerns, and proven to be reasonable by backing off his demands. THAT is when he would have leverage.

Questions? Complaints?

(AIM: JetForze; email: Jon.d.ma@gmail.com)

Like Stephen Colbert did with himself, I'm mentally preparing us for such a bizzare occurance so we can't feel threatened by it when the situation actually becomes imminent.

But he is an elite player, when healthy, who loves playing in Oakland.  So its difficult not to encourage him to stay.

By not even negotiating with Baron and forcing Ellis to spend half-two thirds of his minutes at PG, the warriors are obviously setting themselves up to make a decision between the two.

healthy baron > gilbert arenas > injured baron.

if baron misses less than, i dunno, 12 games, keep him. if not, get gilbert! ive always liked gilbert arenas, cuz when i was younger, him and jrich were the only ones that signed things for me.

How?

Elton Brand opts out and doesn't return. That's a real possibility. Corey Maggette has already said he plans to opt out of his deal. Sean Livingston's injuries could mean the Clippers decide not to offer him a $5-million QO.

Those three players equal about $30-million in payroll.

I'm 95% sure that Maggette will want to leave because he and Dunleavy just don't see eye to eye. The Clippers owner loves Maggette, but I odn't know if that's enough. Sure, they can throw a whole bunch of money at him to keep him, but I really don't think he wants to play for Dunleavy, who isn't going anywhere.

Livingston's situation is just tough to gauge because I have heard that he won't ever be able to come back and play the game the way he used to. He will have lost most of his quickness and won't be nearly as explosive, which are things that made him so valuable in combination with his height. They certainly won't give him that $5-million.

Brand's situation is really up to Elton. At some point, he's going to want to be a part of a situation where he really had an opportunity to win. Because of his Achilles' situation, he'd be taking a HUGE risk if he opted out, because it is pretty tough to get a big deal after a year on the shelf .. unless you're Nene. I'll be interested to see what Elton ends up doing.

Let's say Elton stays .. the Clippers could have Elton, Mobley, Kaman, Tim Thomas, Brevin Knight, Al Thornton, and Guillermo Diaz under contract and their payroll would be around $45-million. That means they'll have about $14-million to make a run at Baron Davis. The Clippers could conceivably offer Baron something like 4 years and $60-million.

They'd look like this:

Baron / Knight
Mobley / Diaz
Thomas / Thornton
Brand
Kaman

Considering how bad they're going to be this year, they'll get a high draft pick and can take a big man - and there are plenty of options. Kevin Love, Roy Hibbert, Michael Beasley, Darrell Arthur, DeAndre Jordan, Brook Lopez.

Let's say they go for another guard. Boy oh boy. OJ Mayo, Derrick Rose, Nicolas Batum, Darren Collison .. plenty of options.

Also, factor in the fact that the Clippers will receive an additional first rounder from the Timberwolves because of the Sam Cassell/Marko Jaric deal. The pick is Top 10 protected through 2010. I don't think the Wolves will be out of the Top 10 this year, so this is sort of a moot point.

Anyway, fill out the roster with veteran minimums and second rounders, and that team could eventually be:

Baron / Knight / 2nd Rounder
Mobley / Diaz / Vet min. #1
Thornton / Thomas / Vet min. #1
Brand / Thomas / Vet min. #2
Kaman / Hibbert / Vet min. #2

The Clippers could certainly use Baron and have the money to get him next season. I think the Warriors made the right decision in not extending Mr. Davis, but to pretend like he won't have options next year is unrealistic because the Clippers will come a'callin'. They'd LOVE to have a bona fide superstar like Baron to pair with the quiet awesomeness of Elton Brand.

Just sayin' ..