OAKLAND — In the span of 14 months, the Warriors have gone from being the toast of the league to just another NBA club in search of an identity.

Golden State was left in such a state Tuesday after point guard Baron Davis — the heart and soul of a squad that in May 2007 became the first No. 8 playoff seed to knock off a No. 1 in a seven-game series — agreed in principle to a five-year contract worth a reported $65 million with the Los Angeles Clippers.

Davis will leave the Warriors after 31/2 seasons in which he helped return the Warriors to relevance and led them to that stunning playoff victory over the Dallas Mavericks but ultimately was unable to push Golden State into the Western Conference's upper echelon.

"It's tough, but you have to do what's best," Davis said Tuesday evening at a movie screening in San Francisco. "You just have to do what's fair. I'm happy with where I'm going."

Talks about a contract extension between Davis and the Warriors never went very far this offseason, with the two sides most deeply divided over the length of any potential deal. Davis played all 82 games last season but missed a combined total of 47 games in the two years before that, apparently prompting fears on the team's part about the 29-year-old's durability.

"All I ultimately wanted was to be here, long-term, and I wasn't lying about that," said Davis, who attended UCLA. "I just did what was best for me."

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of Davis' move — which can't became official until July 9, when the NBA's moratorium on player movement ends — broke almost exactly 24 hours after he unexpectedly opted out of the final year of his Warriors' contract, a decision that meant passing up on a guaranteed $17.8 million.

"It wasn't an easy decision from our end," Todd Ramasar, Davis' agent, said Tuesday. "(Opting out) ... was risky, and it paid off."

Ramasar denied talk that Davis, 29, had an under-the-table deal in place with the Clippers before terminating his deal with the Warriors. The Clippers came into cap space only after forwards Corey Maggette and Elton Brand opted out of their contracts Monday; Los Angeles is expected to re-sign Brand today, giving the Clippers a formidable 1-2 punch.

"If you had asked me yesterday, this was very unexpected," Ramasar said. "With Corey and Elton opting out, you could see the situation change by how much space they had under the salary cap."

The Warriors acquired Davis from the New Orleans Hornets for Speedy Claxton and Dale Davis on Feb. 24, 2005. Davis averaged 20.1 points and 8.1 assists in 227 regular-season games with the Warriors.

"I can't see the Warriors without B.D.," Warriors forward Al Harrington said. "It would make everybody's life tougher."

When Davis inks his Clippers contract, it will leave the Warriors with probably $17 million to $18 million under the salary cap to play with, plus an additional $12 million or so worth of room under the luxury-tax threshold. The exact figures for those limits will be determined next week.

That means the Warriors — who currently have 11 players under their control but only six under contract — will have plenty of cash to fill holes on their roster.

Coach Don Nelson, reached in the late afternoon Tuesday, said he was at a strategy session discussing various scenarios available to the team, but declined to comment on specifics. Executive vice president Chris Mullin did not return calls for comment, and other officials would neither confirm nor deny a Washington Post report that the team reacted immediately to Davis' unexpected move by reaching out to Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas and offering the former Warrior a five-year, $101 million blockbuster contract.

The Post said the Wizards responded by offering a maximum-level contract of six years and roughly $124 million and that Arenas is expected to remain in Washington.

If the Warriors, who chose raw 18-year-old forward Anthony Randolph with their first-round selection in last week's draft, want to look ahead to 2010 or beyond, the next targets would likely be Harrington and Stephen Jackson, the two remaining veterans under contract from last season's 48-win team.

Harrington said Tuesday he expected to meet with Mullin to discuss his future with the team. The 10-year NBA veteran has been said to be mulling over whether or not to request a trade.

Contact Geoff Lepper at glepper@bayareanewsgroup.com.