Groupies add flavor to otherwise standard NBA Finals

They went into the shower.

Me, I saw this happen. Couldn't believe what I was seeing. These two women walked into the shower and stopped in front of the first player they saw, Mavericks reserve Marquis Daniels. Poor Daniels. He knew something was wrong. He also knew someone was naked. Himself. So he grabbed a towel, covering himself.

About that time, a Mavericks official noticed the two women in the shower and escorted them unkindly out of the locker room. The Mavericks official then berated the security guard standing watch outside the locker room door. The berating continued, off and on, for the next 10 minutes.

Inside the locker room, the Mavericks were shocked. And these are NBA players. It takes a lot to shock these guys.

"I've heard of some crazy (stuff)," said Mavs guard Darrell Armstrong. "That's the craziest (stuff) I ever saw."

Armstrong is a 12-year NBA veteran. He's right about that -- he has heard some crazy (stuff). And he's saying two groupies in the team shower is the craziest? Come on. Get serious.

"I am serious," he said. "You hear stories, and you see things, but I've never seen that."

You hear lots of stories about the nocturnal life of an NBA player, but the stories are diluted by anonymity. These guys aren't going to rat on another player, and they're definitely not going to rat on themselves. So you get nameless, faceless stories like the one about the active NBA star who checked into his hotel room and found a woman waiting for him in his room. In his bed. Clothes on the floor.

Marquis Daniels didn't want to talk Tuesday night about the women in the shower -- and they had their clothes on!

"I didn't see it," Daniels lied.

Marquis, Marquis, Marquis. I saw you. They were talking to you.

"Oh," he said. "I don't know anything."

Gotcha. Mavs forward Josh Powell saw the shower scene and then said, "That's No. 1 on the list of weird stuff I've ever seen -- for now."

For now. Excellent qualifier. After all, this is only his first year in the league. Still, the unheralded Powell says his phone rings all the time in hotel rooms, unknown women asking him to come out and play.

"I turn the phone off and go back to sleep," he said.

One day Powell might have to do like Darrell Armstrong. Back when he was a starter for the Orlando Magic, Armstrong would protect himself on the road by checking into hotels under aliases: Art Monk, John Riggins, Joe Theismann.

"I loved the Redskins," Armstrong said. "No one ever bothered me."

Give us a groupie story, Darrell. Come on. Please?

"I've heard a lot of them, believe me," Armstrong said, grinning a selfish grin. "And I'm not telling you any of 'em."

Fine. I'll always have Marquis Daniels, two women and a shower. Wait. That didn't come out right ...