When the Los Angeles Clippers matched Utah's six-year, $42 million offer sheet to swingman Corey Maggette on Tuesday, the Heat may have moved a step closer to signing Clippers forward Lamar Odom.

The Clippers must decide by today whether to match Denver's six-year, $51 million offer sheet to guard Andre Miller. The Heat may be awaiting that decision before issuing an offer sheet to Odom, although the club had no comment on its plans Wednesday.

"It's an ongoing negotiation, an ongoing evaluation and there are some triggers in the next week that will bring some information into the equation," Heat General Manager Randy Pfund said last week. "We've got to play this thing close to the vest.

The Clippers probably will not be able to retain Maggette, Odom and Miller because of salary-cap issues. That means they have to make a choice on which two to keep.

The Heat's best chance at landing Odom is to offer a contract worth more than the Clippers could match.

A local-boy-makes-good story highlighted the Spurs' introduction of three new players Wednesday afternoon.

San Antonio native Devin Brown realized a life's dream when he signed a two-year deal with San Antonio.

The 6-foot-3 guard played at West Campus High School and was a four-year player at UTSA, leaving after his 2001-02 season.

Spurs general manager R.C. Buford also announced the signing of backup point guard Anthony Carter and introduced guard/forward Ron Mercer, who had been signed last week.

"We're excited to add a San Antonio player," Buford said of Brown. "He proved he belonged by his play in the Boston Summer League."

Brown caught a break, thanks to that impressive showing in Boston.

"They told me to forget about Utah," he said of the Rocky Mountain League. "They told me to just go back to San Antonio and relax because I had made the team.

The San Antonio Spurs today announced that they have signed guard Anthony Carter. Per club policy terms of the agreement were not announced.

?Anthony Carter is a proven NBA player who has experience as both a starter and a reserve,? said Spurs General Manager R.C. Buford. ?He is a good defensive player and will fit well into our system.?

The 6-2, 195-pound Carter has spent his entire four-year NBA career with the Miami Heat. Last season he averaged 4.1 points and 4.1 rebounds in 18.6 minutes in 49 games. In 26 games as a starter, he had 5.3 points, 5.4 assists and 1.09 steals in 23.8 minutes.

?This is a fresh start for me and a great honor to play for the defending World Champions,? said Carter. ?It will be a tremendous challenge to return to championship form, but it is a challenge I think we will be up to.?

Since the failed effort to wrench restricted free agent power forward Elton Brand from the Clippers, the Heat still has a fistful of cash to spend.

Tuesday night, the oft-maligned Clippers proved their intent to retain their young core of restricted free agents by matching Utah's six-year, $42-million offer sheet for guard Corey Maggette.

All signs indicate that the Clippers, who have already lost free agent center Michael Olowokandi to the Timberwolves and sharpshooting guard Eric Piatkowski to the Rockets, will do everything in their power to retain restricted free agent forward Lamar Odom.

The Heat has long coveted the left-handed 6-foot-10 star in the making and met with him last week in Miami.

"It's been obvious we have interest in Lamar," Heat General Manager Randy Pfund said last week. "It's an ongoing negotiation, ongoing evaluation and there are some triggers [this week] that probably will bring some more information into the equation."

The Clippers pulled the first trigger -- now it's up to the Heat to figure out how much they want Odom and to make him an offer that owner Donald Sterling will refuse.

Lamar Odom has reportedly narrowed his list of potential teams to the Heat, Clippers and Nuggets.

Odom visited the Heat last week, but Miami is awaiting Los Angeles' decision on whether it will match offers made to Corey Maggette (by Utah) and Andre Miller (Denver).

If the Clippers do match Maggette's offer sheet, it is expected the Heat will sign Odom to an offer sheet, which the Clippers would then have 15 days to match.

The Nuggets are also awaiting the Clippers' decision on Miller before they consider seriously pursuing Odom.

The Heat might be willing to take a chance on Odom simply because there are very few remaining quality free agents available. Elden Campbell, who signed with the Pistons, and Darrell Armstrong, who signed with the Hornets, are among the latest free agents to find new teams.

Kobe Bryant may be the most famous athlete to be charged with a crime during his playing days, but in some ways he is not so different from an airline whose plane has crashed, or a soft-drink maker whose products have been contaminated.

The techniques of responding to the crisis and protecting the brand name are largely the same, said Richard C. Hyde, executive vice president at Hill & Knowlton, a firm that specializes in helping corporate clients react to disasters.

"I think there are many things in common with sports celebrities and corporate clients," said Hyde, who is in charge of the company's crisis communications management in the United States. "You go through an assessment process from a communications standpoint -- what's important, what you're going to say. Whether it's the chief executive of a company, the pilot of the plane or a celebrity, nothing can replace a genuine expression of feeling. Body language is important. It may be more important than the words. Some researchers have said 75 percent to 93 percent of what people remember is how someone acted, how they looked, what their expressions were. It's important to show a human being is there."

Little was left to chance at Bryant's news conference. The hair on his head and face was close-cropped and neatly trimmed, in contrast to his police mug shot. Within hours of the filing of sexual assault charges against him, Bryant was on TV with his wife by his side saying he was "disgusted at myself for making the mistake of adultery" but denying criminal acts. He told her, "You're a piece of my heart, you're the air that I breathe."

Nearby sat attorney Pamela Mackey, part of a legal team whose clients have included former NHL star Patrick Roy. The goalie was arrested in a domestic violence incident in 2000 after his wife called 911 during an argument in which he broke down two doors. The defense team made the save when Roy's wife came forward to say she was in a different room when he broke the doors, and charges were dropped.

The Bryant case poses perhaps the greatest challenge yet for what become a growth industry -- protecting or rehabilitating the images of star athlete in trouble.

You really don't have to ask Byron Scott if he's happy.

Exuberance shines from the New Jersey coach's face these days like a lantern. Jason Kidd is in the fold for $103 million over the next six years, and so is Alonzo Mourning, for just a shade ($5 million) over the mid-level exception next season.

The Nets are now four deep at the center position, if you assume that Dikembe Mutombo will remain part of the picture with the $17.9 million - third highest in the league - he will earn next season.

Now comes talk that the Nets, known to be searching for another shooter, may actually be pondering a run at free agent Reggie Miller.

This is escalation on the NBA's highest scale, and Scott gets to coach the result.

But he is also about to enter the tender area of the center's rare kidney condition.

Banking on Mourning's availability ultimately reduced Pat Riley's hopes in Miami to ineffectual rubble.

Mike James already has scored two points on the savvy scale.

Not long after signing a one-year contract worth $638,679 with the Celtics yesterday, the guard went out apartment hunting with his wife.

No sense in waiting until an army of college students swoop in to clog the real estate market next month, right?

``I'm happy to get everything done quickly,'' said the 28-year-old veteran of professional basketball's less-traveled roads.

UMass fans will remember James as the gritty scorer who, in his senior year at Duquesne, made the Atlantic 10 all-conference first team with some far flashier names, including Rhode Island's Cuttino Mobley. Xavier's James Posey made the second team and Temple's Pepe Sanchez the third.

All made the NBA within their first year out of college.

General Manager Randy Pfund confirmed Friday that the Heat is in a holding pattern regarding a contract offer to Clippers free-agent small forward Lamar Odom.

"It's been obvious we have interest in Lamar," Pfund said of the forward who visited AmericanAirlines Arena on Wednesday. "It's an ongoing negotiation, ongoing evaluation. There are some triggers in the next week that probably will bring some more information into the equation. There is legitimate interest."

Having been rebuffed last week by the Clippers with an offer sheet to power forward Elton Brand, Pfund indicated the Heat first will wait to see how Los Angeles deals with pending offer sheets for guards Corey Maggette and Andre Miller from Utah and Denver, respectively. A decision whether to match on each is due by Thursday.

"Everybody is kind of waiting to see what will happen with those two," Pfund said.

Unlike with Brand, the Heat does not appear poised to offer Odom the maximum of $10.96 million as a 2003-04 starting point for an offer sheet that must be for at least three years.

The Heat has about $11.8 million in cap space, with Pfund saying he already is speaking to other prospects about a portion of that total.

As with the Brand bid, the Clippers would have 15 days to match any Heat bid for Odom. That could tie up the Heat's cap space until Aug. 16, or later.

Say this much about Danny Ainge: The Celtics director of basketball operations doesn't waste time.

When free agent Travis Best balked at the team's minimum-scale offer on Tuesday, Ainge changed direction, and yesterday made a minimum-level offer to guard Mike James - ironically a player who came off the bench behind Best in Miami last season.

Though Ainge said last night he was waiting to hear whether James had accepted the offer, which would pay the two-year NBA veteran approximately $638,679 next season, Best's agent had little doubt that James would accept.

``Of course he will,'' said Forest King, who was caught off guard by Ainge's crossover move.

``I was under the impression that when Danny got back from Utah (yesterday) that he would be talking to Travis,'' King said. ``Instead, he told me that he had made the offer to James, and that was it.

``Yes, we had asked for more,'' King continued. ``We were looking at the Boston opportunity as a chance for Travis to return home, and also from the standpoint of where the team was; you know, the fact that they wanted to be deeper at the point position to go deeper in the playoffs.