The Downbeat #1283 -- The "Mark Eaton is big and Jazz fans great" Edition

So the Jazz didn't make  any trades at the NBA Trade Deadline. According to NBA.com since 1987 the Utah Jazz have made four trades.

• Feb 24, 1994: Jeff Hornacek, Sean Green, and a '95 or '96 second rounder for Jeff Malone, and a '94 conditional 1st rounder
• Feb 19th, 2004: Tom Gugliotta, 2 conditional 1st rounders, a '05 second rounder, and cash for Keon Clark and Ben Handlogten
• Feb 19th, 2004: Gordan Giricek for DeShawn Stevenson and a conditional 2nd round pick
• Feb 22nd, 2007: Alan Anderson, for the right to swap second round picks.

That's four trades in 28 years. I don't think ANY of us expected the Jazz do to anything this year. That doesn't mean the swaps were bad. Jeff Hornacek made us a title contender. Googs trade and the picks ended up helping us get Gordon Hayward down the line. Giricek should have been better for us, but he didn't get along with Jerry Sloan. We did use him later to get Kyle Korver in a December 2007 trade. And the Anderson trade helped us get Kyrylo Fesenko.

But in the case of using our flexibility to make a trade at THIS deadline we all knew that wasn't happening. After all, this franchise has done two things recently. The first is been a career rehab spot for veteran players on expiring deals or on the way out of the league -- and they get unregulated playing time here in order to secure longer term contracts in other cities. And the other thing is that we let these mercenaries walk, and we get nothing for them.

Some people said that we used our cap space by letting Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, and Mo Williams walk by getting a first round pick. The situation is more complex than that (we're also getting another year of retarding the growth of our wings and bigs, but hey, we're getting a #23 pick too!), and I will not get into it here. Yes, Golden State's pick is a #23 right now.

Bottom line, no one is surprised we didn't make a deadline trade.

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Big Mark Eaton is in the news again. Mark was just recognized as "Man of the Year" by the 2014 Cypress College Foundation Americana Awards committee. The blurb from Cypress College is almost as interesting as Mark is himself; if you don't know much about Eaton's background I'd suggest you check it out.

Eaton's remarkable journey from aspiring auto mechanic to one of the most prolific shot-blockers in NBA history sounds like fiction. He was 21 and repairing automobiles in Orange County when Cypress College Basketball Coach Tom Lubin spotted him and talked to him about attending Cypress College and playing basketball.

Coach Lubin learned that wouldn't be easy. Mark hated basketball and sent Lubin on his way.

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Finally, Lubin agreed to go away for good if Mark would spend an hour or so with him on the basketball court.

Coach showed him some things that made Mark want to come back again. They spent a lot of time together (they remain extremely close friends) and Mark agreed to join the basketball team.His sophomore season, Eaton led Cypress College to a state title.

After Cypress College, Eaton ended up at UCLA, where he didn't play much but caught the eye of NBA scouts, primarily because he stood 7-foot-4. The Utah Jazz selected Eaton in the fourth round of the 1982 draft and over the next 11 seasons he anchored the team as it transitioned from laughingstock to championship contender.

~The Cypress College Foundation, 2014

Check it out for amazing pictures anyway.

Most of us know Eaton as the 2 time Masterlock Defensive Player of the Year who once had close to 500 blocked shots in a regular season.

Congrats Mr. Eaton, I'm glad you won this award. So to celebrate this moment, here is the worst and/or best Youtube video of you ever -- poorly cropped static images of you set to a St. Germain downtempo Jazz-beat track.

(Thanks to Spencer for this news piece)

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Beat three is always for our guy Trey Burke on Saturday (Saturtrey?) Did you know that for the season Burke is 61 / 67 from the free throw line? That's good enough for 91.0 FT%, which is about as reliable as you can get. The next best rookie who has taken at least 50 FTA is Ryan Kelly at 81.0 FT%, then Tim Hardaway Jr. at 80.6 FG%. He is killing it from the line, which is precisely something THIS team needs.

Here's our squad right now:

	Player	POS		G		FTM	FTA	%		FTA per game
1	Trey Burke	1		42		61	67	91.04%		1.60
2	Gordon Hayward	2	3	49		191	227	84.14%		4.63
3	Diante Garrett	1	2	43		5	6	83.33%		0.14
4	Marvin Williams	3	4	43		39	48	81.25%		1.12
5	Richard Jefferson	3		54		85	110	77.27%		2.04
6	Alec Burks	2	1	54		186	247	75.30%		4.57
7	Brandon Rush	2	3	31		3	4	75.00%		0.13
8	Enes Kanter	4	5	53		87	121	71.90%		2.28
9	Jeremy Evans	4		39		35	51	68.63%		1.31
10	Derrick Favors	5	4	46		120	180	66.67%		3.91
11	John Lucas III	1	2	34		9	14	64.29%		0.41
12	Ian Clark	2	1	12		3	5	60.00%		0.42
13	Rudy Gobert	5		28		28	55	50.91%		1.96
14	Andris Biedrins	5		6		1	6	16.67%		1.00
15	Malcolm Thomas	4	3	2		0	0			0.00

I think that while G-Time gets to the line and makes the requisite 80+ ft% from there, he's not really "money" from the line like Trey is.

How does Trey's 91% stack up against the previous five years of Jazz basketball from the point guard spot? It's #1, duh.

1. Trey Burke (2013-2014) .910
2. Mo Williams (2012-2013) .882
3. Deron Williams (2010-2011) .853
4. Deron Williams (2008-2009) .849
5. Diante Garrett (2013-2014) .833
6. Randy Foye (2012-2013) .819
7. Devin Harris (2010-2011) .811
8. Deron Williams (2009-2010) .801
9. Jamaal Tinsley (2011-2012) .765
10. Eric Maynor (2009-2010) .758
11. Ronnie Price (2008-2009) .756
12. Brevin Knight (2008-2009) .750
13. Devin Harris (2011-2012) .746
14. Ronnie Price (2010-2011) .744
15. Ronnie Price (2009-2010) .695

In the future when we are up and the other team has to foul, I'm very secure with the ball in Burke's hands. And that's really a comfort we haven't had over the last few seasons.

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Didja see that thingy on social media whatzit? Well, for those who don't know, one of the individuals who has access to the NBA.com twitter account made a little snaffu on Wednesday. The tweet was deleted quickly, but our My_Lo saw it, and many, many people saw My_Lo's tweet. It ended up making it as a story at Yahoo! Sport's NBA Blog "Ball Don't Lie" (the previous home of a group of people who have gone farther ahead, like J.E. Skeets, Trey Kerby, Ethan Strauss, etc). Anyway, here's what happened:

Yahoo Sports NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski reported Wednesday that the Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks are discussing a trade that would send backup Clippers point guard Darren Collison (and perhaps rookie Reggie Bullock) to Manhattan in exchange for Knicks point guard Raymond Felton and swingman Iman Shumpert. On one hand, the Knicks have a pretty clear need to improve upon the production they've gotten from Felton - career-low per-minute scoring, 40 percent from the floor, 30 percent from 3-point range, career-low 68.3 percent from the free-throw line, dismal defensive work, etc. On the other hand, Collison - despite strong shooting percentages and an above-league-average Player Efficiency Rating as Chris Paul's backup in L.A., and some impressive stat lines as a starter during Paul's absence with a separated right shoulder - remains more of a guy to whom you pay short money and from whom you hope for the best, rather than someone for whom you give up something of value (like, for example, young guards/forwards with 3-and-D potential).

Grantland's Zach Lowe offered such an opinion on Wednesday afternoon ... and apparently the NBA agreed:

Whoops ... even the NBA agrees the Knicks should not trade for Collison. pic.twitter.com/9Q2wx9IBhI

— Mychal Lowman (@My_Lo) February 19, 2014

The lesson, as always: Be very, very careful to make sure you're tweeting from your personal account, rather than the one you're tasked with maintaining for your employer. (Here's hoping it all turned out well for whomever wrote that tweet, which, naturally, has since been deleted.) -- Dan Devine, Yahoo! Sports.

So what's the real lesson here? Never tweet . . . I think. Or MyLo will find your mistakes -- like he did about the black face thing that went as far as being reported about on Deadspin, The Dailymail (UK newspaper), The Grio (African American content blog for NBC News), and so forth.

(Thanks to Dan Devine at Yahoo! Sports for picking this up, and thanks to JazzHype for finding it and putting it up in a FanShot!)

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So the Jazz lost another game last night, and for the season we're 19-35. There have been a number of bad things to happen this year:

• Trey Burke 's injury that required surgery on his shooting hand
• Marvin William 's various injuries and off-season surgery that kept him out of weeks of ball too
• Jeremy Evans getting injured in summer league
• Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors ' nagging injuries that have kept them out of the lineup now and then
• The inability to either teach the players, or have the players successfully run the gameplan at times
• Trouble rebounding the ball, especially on defense, while sitting guys like Rudy Gobert (25.5 DRB%) and Andris Biedrins (38.5 DRB%) for vast stretches of the season
• Bad shooting from our starting guards Trey Burke and Gordon Hayward
• Troubling back up point guard play from John Lucas III and Diante Garrett
• and so many missed free throws . . . .

With all of that put together the wins just haven't been there this year. And we are a fanbase that was raised on 50 win seasons, almost without fail. It's been a tough year. And everyone has been doing their part to deal with it in their best way. For the media guys who get their paychecks from the same people who own the team, their ideas are very interesting at face value. For the media guys who cover the team as unbiasedly as possible, it's a different type of truth. For the bloggers, myself included, we can only go off of what is available to us. (And really, that's the barrier that separates someone at KSL from someone at Purple and Blues -- the person with more available info does what they need to do in order to continue getting that more info) And over all spectra, there are parts of each of us who are fans. And as fans, it's been tough. And this season many people have gotten 'into it' over opposing ideas on how to fix things, and work towards a better future.

I want to thank all of the people who visit this site for visiting this site and participating with the discussions here (or just lurking). As far as I know, no other website that produces as much original content as we do has the type of community that we do. And I want to encourage people to have opposing points of view and express them here. It's what makes us who we are. Salt City Hoops has great original content but no community. The newspapers report on what happens but don't have the time to delve into something off the news cycle for 3000 words like blogs can, and their comments sections are frighting. The radio guys talk all day long, but they screen who gets on air, and which texts to read out. There are a lot of filters there.

Not so much here. (We do like to curb political talk, and other hot button issues that aren't Jazz related.)

We're unique in that regard in that we have so much O.C. and such a great community. I am blown away by a lot of the fanposts, and really enjoy reading the comments section as much as possible.

And before I go any further, I'd love to say thank you to all of the hard working people who do post here as part of the SLC Dunk team. I love the variety of our Downbeats and the different emphasis and tone we get from the individual writers. We are a collection of specialists who bring our real world knowledge and apply it to what we see. Prodigal Punk and My_Lo know the academic and applied fields of management and how to run an organization, and how to train people. Yucca Man, Diana, Clark, and Spencer know all about learning theory and development. Peter knows the NBA CBA better than anyone else I know, and he's so damn smart that understanding the CBA for a hobby is something that's not hard to do.  Moni and Basketball John are amazing at gathering data, and putting it on the web, while making it fun and accessible to all. Jimbo and Mikey keep Spencer frustrated on the podcast (dunkast?), while  drawing us all in. And Layton keeps us all together and on the same page as the only one here (besides Diana) who has worked at the sports section of a news paper before, as he was the editor of the DN's webz. He's also, pretty much, the only person on this website who knows how to write words good.

I love that we get a Downbeat six days a week, and game coverage for every game -- but I especially love the extra stuff we get here. Amazing fanposts that break down things so we don't have to, and focused work from us as well. I loved all the work Clark and Peter (and others) did with the run up to the Trade Deadline. Our team didn't even make a trade, but they suggested countless ones for the entire NBA and our Jazz. I loved Diana's heartfelt and honest reporting during Jerry Sloan Day, and I enjoyed starting the 40 at 40 series (next one dropping on Sunday).

While this season has been even MORE frustrating than last season, it's this SLC Dunk community that has made writing about this team every day a pleasure, and not a chore. It was Frank Layden, Stockton and Malone and others who made me a Utah Jazz fan. But it's you guys here who have helped convince me to remain one.

So thank you!