The Sport Count

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Baron Davis has opted out of a guaranteed $17.8M next season, and it’s being confirmed by ESPN’s free agent listings (aka the Bible for that sort of thing). That’s huge, in case you were wondering. Baron had promised he wouldn’t opt out, and made moves just hours before deadline. GSW message boards are seeing some exceedingly unhappy chappies.

Injury concerns aside, B. Diddy is one of the top-flight point guards in the league, and his sheer talent alone makes him desirable. Moreover, he’s probably desirable regardless of the character of your team. Not a single team springs to mind that wouldn’t benefit from having Baron Davis running the point. The question now is, where can he go?

Bay Area forums are alive with potential sign-and-trades between GSW and the Clips, involving also newly-free Elton Brand, which seems logical, in that both teams could use the respective players. With Kaman due to return and absolutely ruling the boards while Brand was out, perhaps an electric point-man like Davis is more valuable than another big. Meanwhile, GSW pick up an All-Star big man to take some of the height responsibilities off Captain Jack and the perimeter-friendly Harrington.

Where else? According to Stephen A. Smith, New York is a possibility. According to the Sport Count, New York is not a possibility because:

• Where are they going to get the $$$ to sign a guy who just opted out of $17.8M? They’re already paying out over $90M this year alone.
• They’ve got a ’star’ point guard in Jamal Crawford (rofl).
• It’s New York, they don’t do smart things at the Knicks.

An exciting speculation popping up is that he wants to go to Hollywood. The Lakers have nowhere near the cap room to sign Baron to equivalent money this season, but they have the potential to offer him a heavily back-loaded contract to try to get him to stick around. Still, it’s not likely given that they are apparently struggling to re-sign both Sasha Vujacic and Roni Turiaf.

Even above Brand, this is the most exciting news so far in what will likely be a huge off-season for blockbuster moves. The Sports Count is giddy with excitement already.

Posted by: Alex