With all respect this argument doesn't hold water.
It's been talked about before on ST: since 2003 the Spurs just haven't had the cap space to be big players in FA. In 2003, Jason Kidd came very close to signing here. It's not an SA thing, it's a money thing.
Well what about the endorsements in the big market? Today, the top two shoe deal holders in the NBA play for Cleveland and OKC. Damian Lillard and Westbrook live in small markets too and do well on the marketing front. By the way, this isn't new: in 1995 two of the top shoe endorsement played for the same team: huge market Orlando. Nothing new other than social media has made location even that much more irrelevant.
Well then it has to be the lifestyle of living in a large market. By the way people who hold that view must be only talking about NYC, LA, MIA, Bay Area, and frigid Chicago. But leaving that aside, the bulk of NBA players own homes in 3 states:
http://hoopshype.com/real_estate.htm
This suggest most make their homes other than where they play ball.
If and when the Spurs have enough money, they'll be FA players.