The NBA draft a couple weeks ago was upstaged by big name NBA players being traded to contenders.  Much of the talk centered around whether Shaquille O'Neal had enough left to "get a ring for the King" in Cleveland, or whether former slam dunk champions Vince Carter and Dwight Howard could leap their way to an Orlando title.

Over the last week, the opening of the free agency period has been dominated in the news by Ron Artest joining Kobe Bryant in LA and Rasheed Wallace going to play with Kevin Garnett in Boston.

Only one of the contending teams made impact moves during both periods, though: the San Antonio Spurs.  Right before the draft, the Spurs traded some favorable contracts to get Richard Jefferson.  Jefferson is not an elite talent, but he is a wing with good size that has proven himself to be a 20-point scoring threat that can also body up against bigger wings like LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony.  And this week, the Spurs filled in their hole at starting power forward by signing free agent Antonio McDyess.  To many, McDyess was the best player on the Pistons last season after they traded away Chauncey Billups.

Let's recap.  The Spurs, winners of the title just two season ago, won 54 games last season.  This was with Tim Duncan and Tony Parker missing a combined 20 starts due to injury, and with Manu Ginobili injured for the entire season.  Now, on top of that championship nucleus that should have had the time to recover from injury, the Spurs have added two playoff-tested vets that fill line-up holes and are still near the top of their games.

A couple of months ago I asked if the Spurs were finished as a dynasty, and concluded that their championship window was still open if they had a solid offseason that addressed some of the holes in their frontcourt.  With the addition of two quality, starting forwards I think it is safe to say that San Antonio is definitely in the championship mix and might even be the favorites in 2010.  Even though nobody is talking about them.