Mullin knew that Baron Davis was not going to figure into the Warriors future because of his high-risk health and did not give him the long contract he deserved. Baron played 82 games last season, all of it, and that still did not warrant any love from management. But everyone was going to forget all that and have Baron play another meaningless season. Don Nelson thought he was coming back. His teammates thought he was coming back. Even Baron Davis thought he was coming back. Then, the chance of playing in Los Angeles came up, and Baron is not looking back.
I have to side with Baron, even though I am a Bay Area native, because there wasn’t a future for him on the team. He can now go to the Clippers who have all the talent and have been waiting for someone to lead them to the post-season. The consensus is that the situation has been a “shock” to everyone, so I wouldn’t blame Mullin for not looking to profit from Baron’s departure. It was inevitable that this would happen, Baron just jumped the gun – no quarrels from me.

They didn’t handle the PR aspect well, as evidenced by the level of anger towards the front office on this site and elsewhere, but Baron’s timing made that next to impossible. As a basketball decision, I think it was the right one… not a fun one, but the right one.

The offer to Gilbert is the strangest part. I would’ve been pretty tickled to see that guy back, but I don’t get stopping short of $60 million for Baron and going past $100 million for Gilbert. Add in how it looked vis-a-vis Baron, and I’d say that’s the worst move the front office has made in a while.

We all knew that the organization was not willing to give into the high fiscal demand of BD. however, the whole situation of how the Warriors organization handled the talks resembled actions of stubborn sibilings, fighting over the cake. First you got two parties holding out on demands, where BD wanted to stay with the place where his career was revived, then you have an insulting action by the Warriors to offer Arenas max contract (when BD wasnt) to show thier loyalty to a player? In no way should a professional organization act this way towards a valued employee.
It seemed as if who would call each other’s bluff first. but in the end the Warriors have more riding on the bet and lost out. BD got his money and will return to his hometown. Warriors however will fiscally and morally suffer from disappointed fans who just lost thier favorite player in the worst possible scenario….letting him walk out the door. Our team now will face another two years of “rebuilding” in the post Nelson redux era.

I blame management for this. Fans as a whole should boycott COHEN for cheapskating this faithful organization for years. We have longed for a successful team and saw the last two years as new life for us fans. but the actions of management has suggested otherwise. They first let last year’s RFA’s of Barnes and Pietrus test the market for thier value. Now this year thier gonna let the market decide on our two promising RFA of Ellis and Beans. these money saving moves will burn the Warriors organization as it will prove how frugal and disloyal our owners are.

As a childhood fan I am thoroughly disappointed in the actions the Warriors have made to help improve the team. our young nucleaus has a great future, but losing BD in a bad way will surely hurt the organization through his leadership and charisma. To top things off, we give championship leverage to the historically bad and arguably worst organization in the NBA? i thought the Warriors were bad post TMC era, but I always depended on the Clips to be even lower and lift my spirits. now the tables have flipped.

Thats enough rant.