I do not understand how the Miles situation could have been so badly mismanaged. If he is even CLOSE to basketball shape, then we had no business trying to get a medical retirement for him, when all we needed to do was see if he could still play, and then trade him as an EXPIRING CONTRACT next summer, when we are looking to clear cap spcae anyway. He would have been a piece. If he hurt himself badly in his return this year, then he could have become a medical retirement at that point, and we would still be fine for summer. This is the only situation where we don’t get the benefit of his possible trade value, and also have the risk of his salary not coming off the books. As I understand it, if we had medically retired him at the end of the COMING season, next summer we would be free to spend his salary regardless of whether he later came back. Now, we risk losing it for next summer if he returns in 2008-2009.

If he plays eleven games this season for a team, there is a lot of explaining to do on the Blazer’s side.

On the other hand, If this is just his agent trying to drum up interest, he’s doing a masterful job!

that would explain alot. These drugs are more often tailored to aiding recovery than anything else.

I would think that that would be a pretty plausible explanation as to what happened. The real question is will anybody take a chance on him after what he has gotten away with in Portland.

...it has something to do with being on consecutive 10-day contracts, which is what he would need to be on in. That is why the suspension was 10 days. It essentially means an owner is going to need to commit to him for one year.

All he would need to do would be to be recorded for 1 sec and it would count for a game.

I’ve thought about this Miles situation quite a bit the several times it has come up over the past few weeks. And heres where I’m at on this.

I think Miles gets a bit worse rap here in Portland than he deserves. I think we look at his maddinging combination of amazing natural ability and lackluster work ethic, his inconsistent performance before the injury, and his inability to come back from it in a timely manner (whatever the combinations of reasons), he didn’t live up to his contract. I think we take all that stuff and we use THAT as the real (underlying) reason we label this guy the way we do—a locker room cancer, a bad guy, a jail blazer, all the rest. We say all those things and feel we can justify slamming the guy. But the reality I think is that he wasn’t all that – at least not all the way. This guy wasn’t a Zach or Bonzi or one of the others. He was a talented guy who was lazy. But we feel better about ourselves – it’s just easier for us – to just say “oh, he’s one of those jail blazer guys”. Maybe he was a bit, but not nearly like we make him out to be I think.

So, at the end of day here’s where I’m at. I wish Darius well. If he can come back and play in the league – good for him. It will have meant he worked for it, he turned around his lack of effort and did it, he would have overcome an NBA medical retirement for the first time ever. And I’ll be happy for him. Yeah, it will affect our cap position. But that’s life. Six months ago we thought he would be on our books through 2010 – and we still had a 2009 cap space plan. yeah, it won’t be as strong, but it’s still there. And we signed him to that deal, so I won’t feel cheated or like we got shafted. Instead, I’ll feel like we are right back where we thought we were going to be all along.

In short, I think we should feel like him being on our cap next summer is the default position. It’s where we are SUPPOSED to be. It’s where KP has been angling us for for the better part of two years. And it’s not a bad place to be at all. If it turns out he doesn’t make it back and we have that extra $9 million—then that’s a bonus.

I think that’s the right way to approach it.

I’m pretty sure that the Blazers won’t be paying all of Miles’s salary even if it is reapplied to the blazer’s for salary cap purposes. The career-ending injury provision is an actual provision of the CBA and when it’s granted to a team for a player, the insurance policy kicks in and picks up at least 80% of the salary. That is based on a medical conclusion and that conclusion doesn’t necessarily change if Miles plays in some games.

So portland (paul allen) would likely still save 80% of the value of the Miles contract. Accordingly, this move by the Blazers was a money-saving maneuver as well as a cap-space maneuver.

And if you read the CBA, the process whereby portland could re-apply to have Miles’s salary taken back off of their cap, may be successful, even if Miles plays in 50 games. The medical conclusion that determined he had a career ending injury was based upon a medical finding concerning the cartilage of his knee. That cartilage isn’t going to ‘get better’. It will still have that same condition that the finding was based upon. Obviously, him playing would be circumstantial evidence that the finding was a bit suspect, but if a followup medical examination of his knee reached the same medical conclusion as before, the Blazers could be granted cap-relief again.

Nobody is “forcing” darius miles to retire. There is a process set forth in the CBA dealing with ‘career-ending injury’ . This is a 2-step process, that first gathers the medical data and derives a conclusion about the injury. The 2nd step is then to formally declare the player to have a career-ending injury. This then crosses the threshold into where the insurance on an “insured & Guaranteed contract” then absloves the team’s obligation for a percentage of the contract. There is also a provision within the section of the CBA allowing the salary of the player to be reoved from the team’s salary base.

That’s what has happened here. The Blazers have no control at all over what Miles does. They can’t compel him to ‘stay retired’. There is nothing about ‘retirement’ in that section of the CBA.

Miles is not the player that the Blazers gave that big contract to. He has a damaged cartilage in one of his knees and that isn’t going to change. The Blazers simply availed themselves of a regulatory process to have insurance (to which they pay major premiums on all the players) relieve some of the salary obligation.

It’s certain that any team that signs Miles won’t be subjecting him to a standard physical. There will also almost certainly be a lengthy clause to any contract Miles signs absolving the team from any permanent damage or disability Miles suffers in case of injury while under contract.

Just noticed this on his myspace page
[quote] Darius Miles’s Details
Status: Swinger
Here for: Dating
Orientation: Straight[/quote]

Mr. Family Man is trolling for hotties on myspace.

Everything about Miles, begins and ends with Miles, not KP, management, Mac or the Blazers. Consider that after two years out, he finally heals up enough to feel good again, and in order to play, takes a drug test. And fails it. Think about it. Here’s a kid making $9 million a year, hasn’t played for two years, and the first thing he does he screws it up. He could’ve taken his own tests before the NBA to make sure he was clean – but didn’t. I’m willing to bet he didn’t even know that what he was taking was illegal.

And this is vintage Miles. Not a bad kid, just always seems to be a little clueless. Some call it a lack of judgement, of common sense, whatever. Another way of putting it is that he just never seems to be 100% dialed in. Now, think about his career. All those issues. Think about how many were really just judgement issues? Making poor decisions. Wrong place at the wrong time. Not listening to the coaches. Etc.

Now, think about the knee injury for a moment. The Blazers, the NBA, and the doctors are telling him he has had a serious knee injury – as if, I might point out, an almost two year recovery wouldn’t tell most of us that anyhow.

So what’s Miles do? Does he listen? What do you think all of these people have been trying to tell him? Think about it. After all, do you really think that they hate the kid, or are lieing to him, or looking for some way to dump him. Give me one instance of KP or the Blazers showing that kind of a vindictive streak. Anyone?

Now, what’s the first reality of injuries like this? Answer: You are never 100% again. Period. Any athlete on this board knows that.

What’s the second reality? If he blows that knee out again, and it can never be as strong as it was, then just how long will the next recovery period take? Three years? Further, will he ever again have the same amount of movement he has today, if he does blow it out?

Some of you are athletes. What’s your take?

Now, what’s the next reality? Well, we all know that a healthy Darius is worth a contract, even if he is a bit less dialed in. But, he doesn’t have one yet – does he?

Why?

My take – because just like the Blazers, most of these GM’s, no matter how tough and competitive, aren’t in the business of exploiting this somewhat naive player, and then have him, on their watch, blow that knee out one final – and forever last time?

Darius is chasing a dream. To get there, he’s simply not listening. The Blazers did everything they could to get through to him. But just like so many times on so many other things, they couldn’t do it.

In the end, the issue isn’t is Darius healthy. It’s not is he 100%. He issue is he can never be 100% again. And if he doesn’t take care of that knee – he’ll lose it. And the Blazers are perfectly willing to suck his contract rather than carry the responsibility for encouraging him to play, when the bottom line is he should retire. Now.

If he’s going to make a comeback, and we’re going to have to pay him, is it still possible to just keep him? Because we waived him under the assumption that he was medically unable to play, and if he’s able to play then isn’t our waiver predicated on something that isn’t true?

Not that I want him around or anything, I think he needs to be able to start over in a new city with a new team, with a fresh slate to be able to succeed.

Oregon Live interviewed KP today on Darius. His comments in brief are that the injury was described by the Blazers and their team doctors, and the NBA’s doctor, as the “worst microfracture” they’d seen. Further, if he blows the knee out, there’ll be no reahabbing. Instead, the knee will have to be replaced with an artificial knee. And KP said that he wasn’t about to give Darius any encouragement to play again and then be responsible for that.

Darius is just Darius. He’s out hustling teams with his version of how “look guys, I can still play”, while the teams are reading the reports from the medical professionals. And none have signed him up. The fact that he can show up for a try-out is irrelevant. Oh, it makes some good press and looks good, but the Blazers, and the Doctors, are just shaking their heads.

Now, tell me a single GM that is going to listen to Darius, not the doctors, and then give the kid the opportunity to become a cripple – for life.

You know every well every GM has read the reports. And you know very well that every GM has a spot on the third team if they want to use it. And you know equally, that if there was a single ray of shining light in those medical reports, that given Darius’s skills, they’d sign him for a minimum contract in a minute. It’s a no risk deal for them.

But who in their right mind wants to be the guy that enouraged someone like Darius to play, knowing that that opportunity virtually guarantees that the kid will end up being crippled.