"Tell them to go buy some tickets," Buford said with a chuckle.

Consider it a voluntary bond initiative, meant to fund the renovation of San Antonio's landmark professional sports franchise.

The past two weeks have been a dizzying one for the Spurs' front office, which has spared no expense in seeking to rebuild the team after April's first-round playoff flameout against Dallas.

On June 23, the Spurs pulled the trigger on a trade with Milwaukee, swapping aging veterans Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto and Kurt Thomas for 29-year-old scoring swingman Richard Jefferson - and footing the $29.2 million remaining on his contract.

Two days later, DeJuan Blair, a consensus All-American forward from Pittsburgh, fell to them in the second round of the draft.

Then on Wednesday, the Spurs landed free-agent big man Antonio McDyess, the former All-Star from Detroit. The team expects to officially sign him to a three-year deal worth a guaranteed $15 million before week's end.

In a flash of a fortnight, the Spurs have gone from an aging team on the verge of inconsequence to a reinvigorated team again in the thick of the NBA title conversation.

"They really re-did their team," Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni said. "Now they're right back where they were a couple years ago, if not better."

Like most extreme makeovers, the Spurs' summertime transformation has not come cheap. It has pushed the Spurs well past the NBA's luxury tax line, sticking majority owner Peter Holt with a tariff bill that might reach $15 million next season, on top of a payroll that could exceed $80 million.

It is a bold financial gamble by a team in one of the smallest NBA markets, especially in the face of a flagging economy uncertain to rebound anytime soon.

It is an overhaul deemed necessary if the Spurs were to keep pace in an escalating offseason arms race involving Boston, Cleveland, Orlando, Dallas and the NBA champion L.A. Lakers.

"The ownership group really allowed us to add some exciting pieces, and to be aggressive in putting together a team we hope will be in position to play late in the season," Buford said. "It's really a credit to the ownership, the commitment they made not only to our team, but to San Antonio."

Heading into the summer, the Spurs found themselves at a future-defining crossroads. They could have tried to reload on the cheap, crossing their fingers for one last run around the All-Star core of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.

Instead, Holt opened his pocketbook, and the Spurs went all in. After the two-week spending spree, only five players remain from the Spurs' last championship team, in 2007: Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, Michael Finley and Matt Bonner.

With the addition of Jefferson, a career 17.7 points-per-game scorer, and a potential double-double man in the 34-year-old McDyess, the Spurs' lineup should be ready to compete with any in the NBA.

The Spurs' offseason makeover has brought in so many new faces, at least one player jokingly wonders if he has been traded to another team.

"Anything can happen in this business," second-year guard George Hill said. "It's just amazing how you can have one team, then you look around and you have a whole different team."

The Spurs' offseason work isn't quite finished.

Buford says he arrived at work Thursday, just hours after sewing up the McDyess deal, to find that coach Gregg Popovich had left him with a new laundry list of offseason issues still to address.

No more major moves are expected, because the Spurs already have committed almost all the money allotted them in free agency. Instead, they will likely look to their summer league and training camp rosters to fill out the end of the bench.

The summer has been busy enough - and expensive enough - already.

"We'll continue to look at ways we can make our team better," Buford said. "Who knows when that will happen, or where those things will come from? It's been a summer that has seen a lot of change, and I don't know when we'll know it's over."