We're barely a week into free agency and we already have the runaway leader for the Mr. Disingenuous Award. He's an unlikely candidate, given that he has been widely praised throughout his distinguished NBA career as a paragon of all things enviable.

	The Admiral might be getting a bit greedy and forgetting the big picture.

We speak, of course, of David Robinson, who is a free agent and, through his agent, has let it be known that he is taking his potential freedom quite seriously. His agent, Jeff Austin, is making lame comments about "fair market value" for Robinson, who has been asked by the Spurs to take a 50 percent pay cut for next season -- tumbling down to near safety net status at an apparently appalling $7.5 million.

What makes this so duplicitous is that Robinson played a huge role last summer in convincing Tim Duncan to stay with the Spurs. The petty admiral flew in from his summertime retreat in Hawaii -- we think he can still make the payments on $7.5 million -- and pleaded with Duncan not to go to Orlando. The gist of the conversation: we can still win here, together, while I still have a few years left before my back goes south.

Duncan signed on for three years and the Spurs posted the league's best record. They then fell victim to the Laker tsunami in the playoffs, with Robinson doing a very good disappearing act in that series until it was all but settled. (He's probably forgotten that little blip by now.) We also hesitate to note that, despite his long and meritorious career, Robinson has won exactly one championship and that was due primarily to the presence of Duncan.

The Spurs want to keep things together, possibly add another wing player, and hope that the Lakers implode or get bored. They have about $16 million to spend on free agents and would like to give most of it to Robinson and Derek Anderson. Oh, you might also recall that Anderson came to the Spurs on the cheap last season for the $2.25 million exception. He did so on the assumption -- silly him -- that he'd play well enough to get a nice bump and that he'd also have Duncan and Robinson as teammates.

But, here's where it gets really dishonest on Robinson's part. He convinced Duncan to stay -- can you imagine Orlando with him there? -- and now he's willing to go, uh, where? That $7.5 million the Spurs are apparently willing to pay him may look insulting in comparison to last year's $14.7 million mother lode, but it's well beyond the means of most everyone else.

Three teams can afford to pay him more than that at present: the Pistons, the Clippers and the Bulls. Fact No. 1: Robinson does not want to end his career playing for any of those. Fact No. 2: None of those teams is interested in spending most of their money on a center who will be 36 when the 2001-2002 season starts.

	Duncan

	Anderson

So, basically, he has no real options outside of San Antonio and it's puzzling why people think the Spurs can be viewed as the bad guys in all of this. Yes, Robinson has been loyal and willingly deferred to Duncan -- duh -- when the Wake Forest rookie showed up in San Antonio in 1997. But he's also been extremely well compensated over the last several years, to the point where staying in San Antonio and getting that second ring should hold sway over a supposedly insulting offer of $7.5 million.

Yes, he has been the public face of the Spurs for the last decade. But that's what makes it even more unseemly. This is all so beneath someone of Robinson's stature. You almost wonder if he's been holed up in some Hawaiian cave for the last 10 days and doesn't even know what's going on. But you know that isn't the case.

Arguably, no player in the league is held in higher regard. He went to the US Naval Academy for goodness sakes! He's been on Sesame Street. He's done all those wonderful reading advertisements.

Those who know him say he's the same way off the court: sincere, dependable, scrupulous and loyal. While Duncan's decision to stay in San Antonio certainly pushed the arena referendum over the top, it also helped that those who voted pictured the Twin Towers in silver and black for the building's opening in Nov. 2002.

Robinson and San Antonio are joined at the hip, both professionally and personally. You would think that he'd make it clear to the Spurs that he wants to finish his Hall of Fame career in the Alamo City and that he'd really like to finish it with another championship or two. You'd also like to think that he'd tell Gregg Popovich, "do what you need to do to upgrade the team. I'll be here. I know you'll take care of me."

But, of course, that isn't the case. The Spurs, doing what they have to do, are openly contacting free agents in the event Robinson scratches that career-long itch to play for the Pistons, Bulls or Clippers. Anderson also is letting teams know he's available because the petty admiral wants more and that means less for him. Anderson has a much more valid case. He's only 27 and, unlike Robinson, he made a financial sacrifice last season to play for the Spurs.

The guy we'd really like to hear from is Duncan. How does he feel about all this? Would he feel compelled to fly to Hawaii and talk his teammate into accepting a lower offer for the betterment of the team and the franchise? Unless this is all agent-created posturing and salary cap brinksmanship, if I'm Duncan, I'm not all that happy about it.

In the end, of course, Robinson likely will stay where he is and everyone will put a happy face on the situation. "I never seriously considered playing elsewhere," Robinson will say. "David owed it to himself to test the market," his agent will say. Meanwhile, the laugh tracks will be at full howl.

For, right now, David Robinson is showing himself to be just like everyone else in the NBA: greedy and looking for that extra bit of leverage. Maybe it's naive on our part, but we expected more, a lot more, from him.

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