http://www.mercurynews.com/warriors/ci_601...?nclick_check=1<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Surprise me, Baron Davis. Surprise all of us.This would be a good time to do something above and beyond your NBA reputation, which, let's face it, still hovers slightly above Ron Artest and Danny Ainge and below Rasheed Wallace and Kobe Bryant.This would be the perfect time to silently back off any hard-line demand for a three-year, $60million-plus extension through 2011-12 and to understand that the $34million the Warriors already have committed to you over the next two seasons is not poverty-level.This would be the ideal time to shock me and every other cynical soul assuming that we've already started another Boom Dizzle Nuclear Countdown.Can you do that, Baron? Can you respect the Warriors' financial restraints, embrace a big-picture future, keep going under Don Nelson, and accept much less money for a much shorter period, or perhaps no money at all?Can you do all that without letting your frustration build, without blowing off your summer workouts, without plotting against management and without screwing up every good thing you, Nelson and the Warriors accomplished over the final 10 weeks of the season?I wonder. I really wonder. The intriguing thing is that the calmer and healthier you are over the next season, the more you'll prove that you deserve that eventual extension.See how that works?Let's flip this around: Chris Mullin has to do something surprising, too.Mullin knows the league --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Advertisement--------------------------------------------------------------------------------remains full of loud Davis critics who assume his stubbornness, fragility and contract demands will always outpace his performance.I'm not one of those doubters, but I understand that the stunts Davis pulled with Team USA during the 2002 world championships and in New Orleans under Byron Scott are as much a part of his re`sume` as the recent 10 weeks of revelatory basketball.This is how unpopular he remains among the NBA powers: They could have named 100 new members of Team USA last week and Davis still wouldn't have made it.Everybody in the league knew the truth, even Davis.Mullin, a quiet rebel himself, loves having Davis on his team winning games, knocking around softer stars, challenging his teammates, and thumbing his nose at the league establishment. Mullin reveled in the Warriors' playoff run and the adrenaline it shot into this recently dormant franchise, and he knows that he would have been in the lottery again if not for Davis. Plus, Mullin has quite a history of doling out massive contracts (though he has a better recent history of dumping some of the worst ones).But Mullin also should know that he can't logically give Davis a major extension this summer, even if it changes the wonderful chemistry of this season's team.Davis is too risky, and the Warriors have to pay Andris Biedrins and Monta Ellis large cash by next season (unless they trade one or both).First, the Warriors have Davis under contract for at least one more season - Davis can opt out in summer 2008, when he would be 29 - so there's no pressure now, when Davis is at his peak negotiating strength.Davis might have as much an impact as Steve Nash, but unlike Nash, who left Dallas for Phoenix when he was 30, Davis is injury-prone and not known for keeping in the best of shape between seasons.In his final three Dallas campaigns, Nash played in 82, 82 and 78 regular-season games, and since has played in 75, 79 and 76. In his past three seasons, Davis has played in 46, 54 and 63 regular-season games; he probably will never play in as many as 70 games in a season ever again.In addition, if Davis opts out next summer, there won't be many teams far enough under the salary cap to sign him outright for $18million to $20million a year, and fewer still that will want to. For Davis to cash out next summer, it's likely the Warriors will either be the team that pays him or the team that arranges a sign-and-trade for him.Either way: no clear reason to re-up him now.And if he wants to walk away next summer, say, to the Lakers or Knicks for the mid-level salary-cap exception - $14million per season less than he would be asking of the Warriors - fine, he can be the first NBA superstar ever to do that.So what's the market force that impels the Warriors to give Davis the big deal this summer? It's his mood. That's it. Baron's mood, and the craving to keep this season's run going into next season.You don't hand out $60million, on top of $34million already owed, just to prevent a meltdown. You pay that to somebody who has proved he can lead at any price.</div>
First round sucsess and wanting money? Ofcourse the credit goes a lot to him but there were 8 other guys who could ask for the same.
