Seattle Sports: In the Morning

Deion Branch severely injured his knee against Green Bay, he may have ligament damage that would require surgery, keeping him out of summer minicamp.

Jim Mora Jr. may end up as head coach of Washington after all. Of the Washington Redskins, that is. He'll interview soon for their vacant head coaching job. Hope they don't ask him how to stop Brett Favre.

What would be the impact if the Hawks cut Shaun Alexander? Danny O'Neil has the answers: "Alexander will be 31 next season. His contract calls for him to make $4.48 million in 2008, according to the NFL Players Association. Seattle could bring him back as is, it could ask him to take a pay cut or it could release him. He would count $6.78 million against the cap if Seattle retained him without restructuring his contract. He would count at least $2.3 million against the Seahawks' 2008 salary cap if the Seahawks cut him outright this offseason."

Dave Boling says that Mike Holmgren's commitment to charitable giving may be a factor in his decision whether to come back next year: "Realistically, Holmgren is in a position that he could walk into any job next week and be guaranteed a nice payday. But for a guy who gives a lot of money and time to foundations and charities, it would have to be tough to walk away from $9 million. Maybe he doesn’t need to coach for himself, but when you’re coaching for the needy … ?"

The Hawks should spend a first round pick on a running back and sign Pittsburgh free agent Alan Faneca, writes Jerry Brewer.

This is the weirdest thing. So the Mariners asked Adam Jones not to play over the weekend for his Venezuelan team, making people think the Bedard trade was about to happen. But now he's playing again...so is the Bedard trade off again? Or was something else going on? At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Hugo Chavez named Jones and Bedard joint ministers of agriculture or something.

The Sonics lost (my thoughts), but when you take a team as good as the Lakers to OT, you've got to feel pretty good. At least Kevin Durant does, telling the Times' Percy Allen: "If we play like this the rest of the season, we'll win games. But we got to play like this. We got to continue this. We can't go back to the way we were playing. This was fun. Even though we lost, this was exciting." Getting Chris Wilcox and Luke Ridnour back certainly seemed to help.

Durant's jersey was #11 in sales at the NBA store in NYC and online, according to this Percy Allen notebook.

Blazers won again, beating the Nets by 26 in Jersey. Roy had 16 in a much more sane 29 minutes (he played 51 the other night in the Blazers' 2OT loss to Toronto). With their win and the Nuggets' loss, the Blazers now lead the Northwest Division at 23-14.

Louis Rankin and Marcel Reese will play in the Texas vs. The Nation college all-star game, Saturday Feb. 2, reports Bob Condotta.

Gonzaga beat Pepperdine, 92-57.

Pitt beat Georgetown, which helps the Huskies' RPI--though sweeping the Oregon schools would help a lot more.