The Downbeat: It's All Just A Giant Clustercuss Edition

The Utah Jazz haven't played since Saturday. Which feels weird. Like in a movie when "you haven't seen the antagonist for a while and you know at any moment he can jump you" weird. Couple this break with last year when the Jazz were almost playing every night and it just feels odd. The next game for the Utah Jazz is tomorrow vs the Washington Wizards. It cannot come soon enough.

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There have been quite a few rumors about Paul Millsap and the Houston Rockets. There have been whispers around the league that Daryl Morey, General Manager of the Houston Rockets, likes Paul Millsap a lot. I'm not sure if it's "like-like" or "LIKE-LIKE". He must have forgot to check one of the boxes at the end of the note I sent him at the end of 6th hour. It's not his fault though. Mrs. Perrycoat was giving him the stink eye. (I love you Daryl.) But there is this little tidbit from ESPN saying that Morey might "LIKE-LIKE" someone else. Tramp.

Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is always looking to make a deal around the February trade deadline each season, but he sounds like 2013 will be different.

"There’s a few reasons," Morey tells the Houston Chronicle. "Everyone (on the roster) is tied to the future. They’re all 23-ish, pretty much all our guys. We’d like to grow together. And we have a clear and present way to upgrade without trades with all the cap room. All those things add up to us being more stable."

Of course Morey will change his tune if Dwight Howard or possibly Zach Randolph are put into the trade market by the Lakers and Grizzlies.

The Rockets currently have $6.88 million in salary cap room and Morey could make a minor deal for an expiring contract if he thinks the player can help the team make the playoffs. Morey will have a good amount of salary cap room in July and that's why he'll only take back expiring contracts, unless the player is an All-Star.

via ESPN.com

No one can be sure if it's just a smokescreen this time of year to make other GMs second guess. I will say Daryl Morey was the first GM to really swindle the GREAT Sam Presti of the OKC Thunder. For that, I fear making a trade with the Rockets. I sure don't want to lose Millsap either.

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I know watching the Pelicans New Orleans Hornets is not high on anybody's list right now but they have a pretty underrated point guard in Greivis Vasquez. He's averaging over 10 assists in his last 19 games and 6 rebounds. The reason I bring him up is he might be moving around draft time. See, the Hornets is the 5th worst team in the league right now. Which gives them a conundrum. Vasquez is a good point guard right now but what happens if they're able to draft a young stud such as Michael Carter-Williams or Marcus Smart? They might decide that one of those young studs have more potential and would like their new core of Pelicans players to build around one of those two guys. Making Greivis Vasquez an interesting target to covet at draft time. But there's an even more interesting twist for the Utah Jazz. What if the New Orleans Hornets decide that Vasquez is their point guard of the future. The Hornets then could trade that pick to Utah in exchange for a couple other picks to add MUCH needed depth to their young team and still be able to address team needs.

But you also have to figure that New Orleans could end up with a top 5 selection in the 2013 NBA draft, a spot where the top point guard on the board could be available. Could the Hornets really pass on someone like Syracuse's Michael Carter-Williams and go for a wing just because they already have Vasquez? If that's the position they find themselves in, it could give them great leverage on draft day.

We have to believe that the Hornets may look to trade down with a team that's more desperate for a point guard -- Dallas and Utah both come to mind -- in order to snag more draft picks while still selecting a small forward with a high basketball IQ like Georgetown's Otto Porter or Michigan's Glenn Robinson III (if they enter the draft) a little lower in the first round.

Via ESPN.com

If this is what Dennis Lindsey is looking ahead to this might change the way a deal for Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap might look. Instead of taking back a young stud the Jazz might be targeting draft picks with a trade of one of those two. I love the trade deadline.

The Los Angeles Lakers lost last night to a team, the Chicago Bulls, in which their leading scorer was Kirk Hinrich. Yes, this fully deserves it's own downbeat point. Feel free to laugh in the comments below. Make sure to clarify whether you are using a hearty chuckle or billowing uproarious laughter. The more adjectives the better.

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The Sacramento Kings. I have no words for the whole thing. If you play the whole "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" game long enough everyone is going to end up blind and missing their favorite NBA team. I know we never like expansion teams and expansion drafts, but if that isn't an option anymore for cities that need an NBA team or want theirs back, what is there left to do? I hate this whole situation. I don't get how this all started in the first place.

I don't get how an owner can screw up so bad in Seattle, then end up selling the team to a group of OKC investors (who just lost their loan team to New Orleans because the city was habitable again). That same group of owners then pretends like they had no idea the OKC investors would want to take the team to Oklahoma. Really? REALLY? THEY'RE FROM ****ING OKLAHOMA, NIMRODS! They then act like they had the best interests of the city the entire time even though if they did they wouldn't have sold it to a group of investors from Oklahoma. OKC investors then lie and swindle their way to Oklahoma where just a few short years later they have a title contender and Seattle fans who put up with a less than standard arena, awful lottery years, awful ownership, and horrific lies are left without their childhood team.

Then proving that humanity has no way of learning from the past the Maloofs repeat the ENTIRE script to Sacramento. Yes, there were some bumps in the road (how were they supposed to know that the city would elect an ex NBA player???), but they finally got what their greedy pockets empty of cash were clamoring for ... more cash. GOD BLESS THE NBA. If the NBA had an ounce of self dignity and respect for their brand they would stop the whole measure and plan an expansion team in Seattle and fix this whole mess. But they're willing to let it go by. It also doesn't hurt that Clay "I Stole A Team From Seattle" Bennet is the head of the relocation committee who is probably trying to pull the biggest mea culpa of his entire career by aiding the swindling a team from one disenfranchised city to the one he PREVIOUSLY disenfranchised. What a clustercuss.

I can't sit here and try to make heads or tails of it. I'm also not going to try to explain that the greater good is Seattle got a team back and blah, blah, blah. The fact here is no one has healed from this. We're just replacing victims here. It's no longer poor Seattle fans it's poor Sacramento fans. What a joke.

Read this open letter from Tom Ziller to the Maloofs.