Who has the most money to offer this summer in free agency? San Antonio? Nope. Denver? Nope. Utah? Nope.

The sad but true fact is that the team that could be a major player in free agency, the team which could really assert itself, will, once again, sit idly by. We're talking about, of course, the Los Angeles Clippers, whose approach to free agency is the reverse of most teams:

Let's see who we can lose.

	Elton Brand will likely be the only Clippers free agent who'll get paid.

It's a shame, really. You didn't hear Jason Kidd mention the Clippers as a possible new employer because, well, he knows it's not even worth the trouble. Even though he would seem to qualify under the conditions recently set forth by the Clippers' mouthpiece for owner Donald Sterling: "superstar salaries for superstar players." Sure, you can quibble about overpaid players, but everyone in the NBA is overpaid. (Find one line of work which guarantees three years of very good money before you've even spent a day on the job.) Kidd, by most definitions, is a superstar. Yet he isn't going to L.A. to even check out the scene because he knows the Clippers won't pay, have never paid, and, as long as Sterling is around, never will pay.

Can you imagine Kidd in the Clippers' backcourt? On one side, he has Lamar Odom. On the other, he has Elton Brand. In the middle, he has Michael Olowokandi. He has a surplus of pups on the wings, ranging from Corey Maggette to Quentin Richardson. How good would that team be?

The Clippers are in a position to make it happen. Currently, they are on the books next year for a whopping total of $14.5 million in salaries to eight players, including the unfortunate draftee Chris Kaman, the latest in a long line to be dragged into the Clipper pit. There also are eight free agents, four of whom are restricted.

Even a modicum of cap/basketball expertise could work those numbers and come up with some pretty decent offers to free agents. Instead, the Clippers are going to spend the summer looking at hostile takeover after hostile takeover. The Jazz supposedly are interested in Andre Miller. The Nuggets supposedly have interest in both Olowokandi and Maggette. Miami czar Pat Riley has long had a fascination for Odom.

All but Olowokandi are restricted free agents. That means that a team (like Utah, for instance) who offers someone like Miller a deal isn't necessarily assured of getting the player. The Clippers could match. They'd undoubtedly take the full 15 days to do so. But, in the end, they'd likely remain true to their history and let the player go.

What's truly unfortunate about all this is that some of the above-mentioned, soon-to-be departing lads, have actually taken a temporary leave of their senses and said they want to stay, empirical evidence be damned. Brand, probably the best of the lot, has said he wants to be a part of a Clipper renaissance. (I guess that means there once was a Clippers naissance.) Olowokandi, after going back and forth with management over various issues, now says he's open to staying.

Bear in mind that whatever you may think of Olowokandi, and a lot of people think he's a slug, there was a similar feeling about Robert Parish before he was traded to the Celtics. Parish was an underachiever on a bad team, was uninterested, uninspired, you name it. He's going to the Hall of Fame this fall because he got traded to a good team with great players. Throw Kidd into the Clipper mix and Olowokandi becomes an appreciably better, more focused player. How many decent centers are out there?

The talent is there. It was there last year, but talent alone can't win in the NBA because there has to be a commitment at the top to build, develop and maintain. The Clippers have refused to do that. They get good players. They use them for a year or two. Then, they let them go. Every player who goes there knows the situation.

That is why Kidd isn't even going to consider thinking about L.A., despite the obvious attractions. (Can you imagine Joumana's reaction if hubby were to come home one day and say, 'Let's see what L.A. has to offer?')? That's why Jermaine O'Neal, Karl Malone and any other free agent of remote import aren't going to consider L.A. The Clippers did sign a free agent last summer: Wang Zhi-Zhi. A real balance tipper, that one.

	Where is the attorney general in California and the consumer fraud division? Why are the fans still paying big bucks to see a team whose owner won't keep them together, cares nothing about basketball and wants only to fatten his already bloated wallet?

Where is the attorney general in California and the consumer fraud division? More important, why are the fans still paying big bucks to see a team whose owner won't keep them together, cares nothing about basketball and wants only to fatten his already bloated wallet? This has been going on for 20 years, a spectacularly unremarkable stewardship by the sporting world's equivalent of Marie Antoinette.

So, no, it's not going to change. Kidd will make his choice soon and it won't be Los Angeles. Maggette, Miller, Brand and Odom all have July 16 beepers set to go off on whatever PDA they happen to own. Olowokandi is getting up to speed with real estate in Florida, or so we have been told. The more things change, etc.

And, of course, it might help these fellows to make up their minds if they also had a clue as to who their coach might be. Oh yes, that. The Clippers supposedly made Mike Dunleavy an offer. Apparently, it was on the low side -- there's a news bulletin. Interim coach Dennis Johnson has been twisting in the wind since April, knowing only that he still, hypothetically, is a candidate for the job. Anytime DJ is mentioned as the possible coach for 2003-04, there are three words that invariably pop up in the story: on the cheap.

How refreshing it would be to have the Clippers emerge from their financial coma to announce that they were re-signing their own and making a serious run at Kidd? How great would that be for the league, to have 29 serious teams instead of 28? Then, there'd be a reason to support the Clippers. Then, there'd be a reason to go to their games because there'd be the expectation that ownership was doing its utmost to win.

You'll see God first.

Last week, talking to a general manager in the Eastern Conference, I asked about the teams who had free agent money this summer. He listed them off: San Antonio, Denver, Utah, Miami, maybe Orlando, Washington. He stopped.

"What about the Clippers?" I asked.

"Oh, they'll have more than anyone," he said. "But they don't count."

They count, all right. But not in the way that they should. And that is the ultimate fraud of all.

Peter May, who covers the NBA for the Boston Globe, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.