At the beginning of this NBA season, nearly all basketball analysts had agreed that Brent Barry?s departure from Seattle, the coffee-laden, former grunge rock capital of the world, to hot, sunny San Antonio would make the Spurs the best team in the league and the team that would dethrone the defending Detroit Pistons.

After a heartbreaking loss to the Lakers that hinged on Derek Fisher?s four millisecond shot heard ?round the world, earning him an overzealous roughly six million dollar a year contract from the Golden State Warriors, the Spurs needed a player to help them make that extra push for the championship. Well, it?s June, Kobe?s been chilling at home for over a month, the Spurs are in the finals for the third time in seven years and very little of this accomplishment can be attributed to Brent Barry.

The true X-Factor for the Spurs has been their trade deadline acquisition, Nazr Mohammed. Mohammed was acquired from the Knicks on February 24th for a very healthy bounty of fan and city favorite Malik Rose and two future 1st round draft picks (likely to be anywhere between 25-30). Averaging 23.5 minutes-per-game since the trde, he is scoring over 8 points-per-game on 56.5 percent shooting and averaging 7.3 rebounds-per-game and over 1 block-per-game in helping lead the Spurs to the finals