Warriors announcer Jim Barnett not retiring after all

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Jim Barnett ignited a celebratory stir on Twitter this week when he announced he'll be doing "all games" on the Warriors' telecasts next season, with the hashtag "#unretired."

To put it mildly, that was a forced retirement. Credit the Warriors for correcting their big mistake. Over the course of recent months, Barnett's role for the 2014-15 season transitioned from "zero" to "a few games" to "most of the games" to "same as before."

When The Chronicle learned last autumn that Barnett would be working his last season, the news came shrouded in diplomacy: a "mutual agreement" between the soon-to-be-70 announcer and the club. That's not how it went down. Barnett didn't want to leave, and unlike the brewing storm that got Mark Jackson fired, this wasn't about a personality clash. The front office - and by that, one can assume co-owner Joe Lacob and team president Rick Welts - merely wanted someone younger and was targeting Brent Barry, the ex-player and part-time television analyst, to sit alongside Comcast play-by-play man Bob Fitzgerald.

Barry wasn't available, nor were some other candidates the Warriors investigated. Barnett kept his head up, did his usual sparkling job, and parlayed his relentless optimism into a cheery outlook for the future. I spoke with him several times during the season, and he never fired any off-the-record barbs at anyone in the organization. He even admitted that Barry, had he taken the job, would have been a terrific choice.

Meanwhile, fans were angry. With letters, e-mails and tweets, they made it quite clear to the Warriors that Barnett is a local treasure, that rare individual who takes you all the way back to the 60s - playing against Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson - without a lot of sappy recollections about "the good old days." Nobody stays as current and enthusiastic about the present as Barnett, giving fans the benefit of invaluable perspective.

Whenever the Warriors move into their new San Francisco arena, it's likely that Barnett will have retired on his own. For now, this works well for everyone, and let's hope the Sharks are listening after their inexplicable dismissal of Drew Remenda. Never lose sight of the majority opinion.