"Maybe Peter Holt feels better after Wednesday night. Then, Richard Jefferson played like the investment he was supposed to be.

Or maybe Holt wonders if he made the right decision last summer. He splurged on a roster that is currently 10-9, and this went against what he once believed in.

But if doubt is going through his mind, someone has a message for him.

This person once splurged, too.

"And I don't regret a thing," said Gavin Maloof, one of the owners of the Sacramento Kings.

The Spurs can still recover this season, especially if Manu Ginobili ends a few more games as he did against Maloof's Kings. Holt has always been optimistic; he stuck by Gregg Popovich in the early days, and he certainly will now.

Still, the Spurs are currently ninth in the West, and the financial outlook is worse. Holt and his fellow investors will lose millions no matter what follows.

Maloof knows all about this. There was a time when he thought, if he just paid more, the Kings could be the Spurs.

There was also a time when he and his brother, Joe, almost bought the Spurs. The Maloof family had earlier owned the Rockets, and Gavin knew San Antonio well. He attended Trinity.

So, with the late Gen. Robert McDermott as his ally, he and his family bid for the Spurs in 1996. Holt edged him in a close vote by the ownership group.

"I think it was a fear of the unknown," Maloof said Wednesday. "They didn't know who we were."

In those days, before the AT