Steve Blake Foul Shooting; Darius Miles Signing Is Official

Several collective bargaining agreements agree that the rules regarding medical retirement are at least a bit fuzzy, and seem to have originally been written into the CBA with the intention of preventing clubs from releasing own players, re-negotiating their contracts to dump salary and then taking them back on for less money. Not for a player being declared medically retired, then making it back with another team (without the team even having to consult an independent doctor again to declare him fit for play).

When can he be traded if he signs with Memphis today (or tomorrow)?

How funny would that be if KP traded for him and then gave him the Raef treatment (tell him to go buy a farm in Iowa)?

If you want to speculate that this signing is another chip in trade negotations between the two teams, I won’t stop you.

If this is the case, I think it would be good to negotiate with them.

What do they want? Outlaw and Sergio for Conley? I’m not a huge Conley fan, but wouldn’t it be worth it? With the Darius cap space we could easily sign Hedo in the off season to replace Outlaw at SF, if Martell and Batum can’t pick up the slack.

1. all of the great speculation that ben provided for how darius still has a hill to climb and a lot of heart to show to impress cheapskate Memphis enough to sign the guaranteed contract after only two opportunities for playing games..
2. Darius has a way of messing things up.
3. Jedi powers of KP..

if these lock solid things still fail us, we may have to accept that Darius will play and the Blazers will get stuck with the bill. this still does not and can not be allowed to matter.
4. There is no way to deal with a team to stop Darius from playing over the next two years… I’m going to say I’m nearly certain that the league will not let the Blazers get Darius’ new contract and freeze his ability to get onto a roster.
5. Even if this was being used as some sort of deal chip, the dangers of bending to blackmail is always the same. Some team is going to be around and Darius’ agent is going to continue to find ways to make news out of the “former star forward”.
6. The major advantage of having many commodities is diversification. The Blazer success has many routes and if Darius is going to stay on the books.. well.. that’s just karma. By just accepting whatever happens.. we will still have plenty of pieces with which to move forward..

That 10 game suspension is like sweet Christmas music to my ears right now.

post updated with no comment from KP…

It sounded bad…

Does the Miles contract go to? is it ‘11 or ’12? I know I should just google it, but I’m too lazy ;)

UPDATE (5:11PM): Asked for comment about the signing this afternoon, Kevin Pritchard replied, as you might have guessed, “You know I can’t comment on any other teams players.”

How sweet is it to be able to text message with Kevin Pritchard?

Good on Darius if he earns his way back into a NBA rotation.

“I wish I could do this without me having to put money on (Portland’s) salary cap,” Miles said. “The only reason they say something about me is because of their business decision. They decided they didn’t want me to play for that team anymore. It’s kind of like the (Stephon Marbury) situation, and everybody labeled my like I was this bad dude.”

to get Travis. Very interesting….

“We got very good reports from Boston that he was really getting close to what he used to be,” Griz coach Marc Iavaroni said. “I haven’t seen him play for a while, but I will say that he’s a worthwhile risk.”

“We’re not going to do anything to jeopardize the chemistry we have with the team with anyone,” Wallace said. “Darius is 27 years old now. He’s married with a son. He has a little better perspective on life in the NBA than he had a few years ago. We’ll see what he has to offer.”

As Ben pointed out, the Grizz have until January 7th to outright waive Miles. And if they DO keep him, he has to sit out 10 games, THEN play in 10 games.

With the Dec. 14th game, he’s got one game of the suspension out of the way, but he’d still have to sit out NINE more games, making the first game he’s eligible to play in January 4th vs. the Mavs – he’d then have to play in what, 25% of the remaining games? Well, that’s certainly possible, but STILL not a lock to happen – especially if the Grizz can put any type of run together.

I can’t see that Memphis would risk messing things up by putting in a new guy, who has no chemistry with the team, and who has a cancerous reputation, when they’ve got SO many young players to develop that he could be “corrupting”. Gay, Mayo, Arthur, Conley, Gasol – all of these guys are relatively new to the league and you don’t want Miles rubbing off on them. That’s something the Celts didn’t need to worry about.

And realistically, what does Miles bring to the team? He’s sort of a ’tweener, a bit like Warrick and Arthur – not big and strong enough to muscle with the PFs, but not quite quick and agile enough to defend and score on smaller more nimble SFs.

And as to the “bargaining chip” theory – I guess it’s possible, but my gut tells me that if the Outlaw-Conley trade every had any legitimacy, it’s pretty much dead in the water now that the Grizz have traded Crittenden. Maybe this is Memphis just trying to poke a finger in KP’s eye in sour grapes because they DIDN’T reach a deal, but I personally don’t see this as getting the two teams any closer to a trade.