[h2]A few Warriors options, after-Baron: Arenas or Maggette for the max, offer sheet to Josh Smith, trade for Billups or Marion[/h2]
Posted by
Tim Kawakami on July 1st, 2008 at 8:31 am | Categorized as
NBA,
Warriors
It's all dramatic. Whatever happens from here-the morning after Baron Davis' stunning decision to opt-out of his Warriors contract and become an unrestricted free agent-is going to be dramatic. It's already dramatic.
Baron could have a free-agent promise from the Clippers or he could be bluffing the Warriors with the Clippers, while waiting to see if he really can land with the Clippers. Whatever happens there: Dramatic.
Baron could go back to the negotiating table with the Warriors to see if there's a way to pry loose some more long-term cash and I'd guess Chris Mullin would be very willing to do that, if just to see what Davis and his agent are thinking. My goodness, no matter what develops from any further negotiations, that would be dramatic.
Or most likely, there could be prolonged multiple-path talks, with both sides trying to correlate the money and value for a proper sign-and-trade, moving Baron to another team for a big deal and the Warriors receiving players and/or picks in return to accomodate it all.
If I'm the Warriors, I can't go into any of this without a fallback. I'm presuming Mullin had a fallback plan for a potential (if shocking) BD opt-out, and maybe it was fellow opt-out man Gilbert Arenas.
Ivan Carter of the Washington Post blogged that he is being told that Arenas received a "flurry of calls" from the Warriors after midnight last night and added that
he hears the Warriors offered Arenas a five-year deal worth more than $100M.
A max offer to Arenas would surprise me-that seems very high for a scoring point guard with a bad knee. But several things would not surprise me:
* Arenas probably heard from the Warriors-maybe not Mullin, but from somebody.
Gilbert still has many friends in the Warriors' organization. As soon as the Warriors found out that Davis was opting out, it would be natural for many of those friends to reach out to Arenas, unofficially, to see where his head was at.
* Mullin probably reached out to Arenas in some form after getting Davis' opt-out papers.
This could've been Mullin's Plan B all along or maybe even Plan A-it's obvious the Warriors weren't too serious about locking up Baron for the long-term, and I totally agree with them on that.
If you're not going to lock into Baron for long-term, what's the next-best option for a lead guard? Might be Gilbert. Might not. I'm not sure I'd want Arenas (who is 26) with Monta Ellis for the future or else I'd better be prepared for them fighting over the ball each time down the court.
* Mullin could've immediately reached out to Arenas as a shock-mechanism: Hey, this franchise has just been blown away by its best player, why not just go get a younger player to replace Baron?
That's a pretty drastic shock-mechanism, since offering that much money to Arenas would mean at least theoretically renouncing Davis' rights, Pietrus' rights, O'Bryant's rights, Matt Barnes' rights… and turning the entire future of the organization, and it's salary-cap status, to a slightly flighty and now dinged up Arenas, who already left the Warriors once.
* If the Warriors are talking big money for Gilbert, however, I'd expect him to listen. Players always have to listen.
If Arenas turns them down or the Warriors can't quite make that happen, what's next?
Mullin is a multi-tasker: I think he always has four or five things going at once, the problem with this situation is that he has to make up his mind about one thing while three or four other things are all in the air.
He has to talk to Davis, if Davis will talk.
He has to be prepared to renounce Davis, if a strong free agent is out there willing to take the Warriors' money.
He has to be prepared to let Davis walk, if that's what Davis is planning.
He has to be trying to set up advantageous sign-and-trades, if those become available.
All at once. Not one at a time.
Some of the options, if Davis isn't coming back and Arenas isn't gettable:
* Pursue Clippers F/A Corey Maggette. He also opted-out (didn't everybody?) and there's very little chance he's staying in LA. He'd cost a near-max deal, he's not a point guard, but he's a young, excellent scorer and I could see the Warriors pairing him with Ellis.
* Pursue restricted F/As Emeka Okafor (Bobcats), Josh Smith (Hawks), Andre Igoudala (76ers) or Jose Calderon (Raptors). All of these guys are interesting, but only Calderon is a lead guard and it sounds like he's staying in Toronto.
The Warriors could be massive players in the RFA market-they've got a potential $19M (if they renounce everybody except RFAs Ellis and Biedrins)-and they could load up a massive offer that another team would not want to match. (It's exactly the situation Warriors fans feared with Ellis and Biedrins when it looked like the Warriors were jammed. Not the case now.)
* Pursue sign-and-trade deals for Shawn Marion, Lamar Odom, Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace or Fill In the Blank. Or a double-sign-and-trade deal for UFA Elton Brand.
This is the most likely situation, presuming that Davis wants the big money and the Clippers can't quite squeeze out enough for his liking to sign him outright. Memphis also is enough under to sign him outright, but the Grizzlies' roster doesn't seem to fit BD. If the Sixers renounce Igoudala, they could sign Davis, but they already have Andre Miller.
Most of the big names mentioned are purely short-term fixes. But Baron was already a short-timer with the Warriors before he opted-out: He had one year left. What's the problem with exchanging short-time Baron for short-time Marion, Odom, Billups or Rasheed (but not BOTH Billups and Rasheed because the money's not right and Detroit probably doesn't want to take Al Harrington in order to make the money right).
A quick breakdown of those options:
-Marion was very enticing… until the Warriors drafted Anthony Randolph, who already duplicates Brandan Wright. Marion is better than those two, but how many skinny fast forwards can one team take on?
Plus Marion wants monster money as badly as Baron and can complain as loud. I'm not sure the Warriors want that headache. Letting Baron walk for nothing (and having his money disappear) might have more draw than adding Marion for a year.
-Odom is intriguing… and he's a rebounder, which is the Warriors' No. 1 need… or was the Warriors' No. 1 need until the new gaping hole at point guard. But the Lakers would have to agree to pay Baron big money (possible) and the Warriors would have to be taking back Odom's expiring deal (at $14.5M). Possible. Tricky, but possible.
-Billups could help… But he has three years left, starting at $11M this year, and he's older than Baron.
-Rasheed Wallace has always been in the back of the Warriors' minds because he's a big man who'd fit perfectly into Don Nelson's style… and Wallace only has one year at $13.6M left… But he's a total short-timer. What does he have left?
There are about 150 other possibilities and just trying to think of them all is already making me dizzy. And it's not yet 9 a.m.
[h4]21 Responses to "A few Warriors options, after-Baron:[/h4]
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