Why Spurs Will Lose Another?

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Michael Finley can get more money from Miami or Detroit. He can team with a friend, Steve Nash, in Phoenix. He can fill a starting slot in Denver, if just to prove to the world he's still got it.

Or, he can come to San Antonio, where the only real plus for Finley is that Bruce Bowen won't elbow him anymore. At least not in games.

Welcome to the latest Spurs free-agent exercise.

It's the Jason Kidd, Karl Malone, No-Thanks Event of the summer.

Miami is the favorite to land the 32-year-old shooter next week for the usual reasons. The Heat can pay about twice what the Spurs can, and, as Jerry Maguire knows, that offer qualifies as you-had-me-at-hello. Money also was a factor two summers ago with Kidd.

Mark Cuban could add to the pot, too. He owes Finley about $50 million, albeit in an exaggerated stretch payment plan. According to reports, Finley will receive his money over about a 20-year period.

So if Cuban doesn't want Finley to help a franchise just 270 miles south? Cuban could always encourage an eastern move by restructuring the contract.

That said, the Spurs say they aren't officially out of the Finley sweepstakes. They hold out hope partly because they admire Finley and partly because of the Latrell Sprewell-like alternatives.

As for the dramatically-altered status of Derek Anderson: The Spurs have no interest in the same guy they tried to keep a few years ago with a $43 million offer.

Gregg Popovich is familiar with the prospects. He knows DA, naturally, and he coached Sprewell in Golden State. Popovich's relationship with Finley is less lengthy but still substantial; the two were together on the 2002 World Championship team.

Popovich has talked to Finley this summer, and he had something to sell besides a chance to win a ring. If Finley shoots well, as he likely would with Tim Duncan clearing floor space, he will find a place on the floor for a team in need of bench scoring.

Finley would also fit in a locker room of professionals. No one ? including those in Dallas ? thinks his March 2004 confrontation with Bowen would carry over.

Sure, Finley called Bowen "a coward player" after a game that season. But ask Ray Allen and Vince Carter. Wouldn't it be better to play with Bowen than against him?

In that game, for example, Finley retaliated and was ejected. Bowen stayed in, as he usually does after these incidents, and the Spurs won.

If Finley became a Spur, he would sit while Bowen started. And those who know Finley say this is a huge issue. Finley is stung and insulted at the perception that his game has dropped off, and playing 12 minutes a night in San Antonio would not cure this.

Finley might take Brent Barry's minutes as well as some of Bowen's. But there are no guarantees with Popovich. After all, Avery Johnson didn't see Finley as a perfect piece for his system, and that system is Popovich's system. </div>

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