No one in Boston cares about the Roy trade anymore. Ainge is a professional and would not add a guy just to screw over the Blazers cap space and it would destroy his credibility.

Losing Miles and getting an additional roster spot was the primary purpose of calling the independent doctor and retiring Miles. Capspace would have been good, but not the end of the world if we miss out on it.

“As for Miles. He only played at the very end but had a couple of blocks (one on a layup as time expired). He also had a nice hustle play to save a ball from going out of bounds. But he moves around like a much older man. That’s probably due to the injuries. It remains unclear whether he’ll look better with more playing time or if he is what he is at this point.”

http://www.greenbandwagon.com/2008/10/11/633172/preseason-game-3-boston-ce#9344870

At least that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsment to me. And tominhawaii is right, Ainge is way more concerned with winning than he is with “getting back” at Portland. There is no way he keeps Miles around unless he truly thinks that Darius is better than his other options.

And honestly it’s almost worth taking back 9 mil on the books to watch Boston implode their team. Who cares. Look – I’m yawning right now.

I still hold onto my belief that Portland won’t lose the cap space. It’s a long road for the loss of cap space:

1) Darius has to make the squad, meaning the Celtics decide to cut a guaranteed contract in favor of him (because at this point I don’t see them cutting O’Bryant, the only other non-guaranteed contract they have besides Miles). And they’re over the luxury tax threshold, meaning they’re cutting twice the salary to get nothing in return.

2) Darius then has to vault over 3 other players. He has to remain on the active squad of 12 during his suspension, meaning they lose a roster spot during those games while 3 guys languish on the inactive squad.

3) Darius then has to actually get into 10 games. He’ll be the 12th man – meaning there will be games (the important ones against division/conference rivals) when he’ll be bypassed in favor of better players.

4) Portland will then have to lose their appeal. According the Larry Coon, the ‘intent’ of the 10 game rule was designed to prevent circumvention of the cap by a team re-signing their own player after the doctor had determined the injury was career-ending (like the Knicks and Allan Houston). The league could very well decide either that the intent of the CBA does not eliminate the cap space for Portland or even rule that the Celtics signing of Miles was only designed to hurt the cap space of the Blazers and is invalid (especially if Miles doesn’t see significant playing time during the games that he does play). Either way, Portland has a decent argument for keeping Miles off the books – since it was the independent doctor making the ruling, not a Portland doctor.

I seriously am not worried about the Blazers losing that $9 million in cap space.

I watched some of Boston’s preseason game and Miles looks terrible. He cannot stay in front of his man and he is extremely passive on offense. I don’t think he’ll make the team.

What were the numbers again?
I believe even with his numbers back on our payroll, the RLEC and expiring rookie contracts
put us still substantially under the cap – and there weren’t any $17mil guys worth spending
the full amount of cap space (Darius included) on.