If Darius plays, does it or does it not count against the cap?

here is the section from the CBA covering Career-Ending Injuries:

”.......(h) Long-Term Injuries. Any player who suffers a career-ending injury or illness, and whose contract is terminated by the Team in accordance with the NBA waiver procedure, will be excluded from his Team’s Team Salary as follows:

(1) Beginning on the first anniversary of the injury or illness, the Team may apply to the NBA to have the player’s Salary for each remaining Salary Cap Year covered by the Contract excluded from Team Salary.

(2) The determination of whether a player has suffered a career-ending injury or illness shall be made by a physician selected jointly by the NBA and the Players Association.

(3) Notwithstanding Section 4(h)(1) and (2) above, the career-ending injury or illness of a player who plays in more than ten (10) games in any Season shall not be deemed to have occurred prior to the last game in which the player played in such Season.

(4) Notwithstanding Section 4(h)(1) and (2) above, if after a player’s Salary is excluded from Team Salary in accordance with this Section 4(h), the player plays in ten (10) NBA games in any Season, the excluded Salary for the Salary Cap Year covering such Season and each subsequent Salary Cap Year shall thereupon be included in Team Salary (and if the tenth game played is a playoff game, then the excluded Salary shall be included in Salary retroactively as of the start of the Team’s last Regular Season game). After a player’s Salary for one (1) or more Salary Cap Years has been included in Team Salary in accordance with this Section 4(h)(4), the player’s Team shall be permitted at the appropriate time to re-apply to have the player’s Salary (for each Salary Cap Year remaining at the time of the re-application) excluded from Team Salary in accordance with the rules set forth in this Section 4(h).......”

Now I”m not an attorney, so some of the language there seems a little confusing, but I think I have the gist of it, especially in light of other things we know.

Basically, If Darius Miles plays in 10 game or more this season, his salary would be brought back and applied to the Blazer’s team salary. That would of course, impact their cap-space.

However, the provision in 4(h)(4) is critical. That would allow portland to re-apply to have the Miles salary removed (once again) from the blazer’s calculation of team salary for the 09/10 season. I believe they would be allowed to apply for this at the conclusion of the coming season.

And (this is important) the process for that re-application is the same as the process for the original ruling.

In other words, the controlling determination is based upon medical evidence, not playing time. And in this case, everything I’ve read indicates that the medical evidence concerning the condition of Miles’s knee was fairly conclusive and overwhelming: his knee is in bad condition. Futhermore, that ‘bad condition’ was centered on the cartilage of the knee, and as far as I know, cartilage doesn’t self-repair. I remember reading that the doctor said that in some places of the knee, it was bone-on-bone action instead of the healthy and normal bone-cartilage-bone action. Another thing I remember reading is that the doctors have told Miles that he shouldn’t continue his basketball career because of the risk of permanent injury or disablility. Just because Miles makes a possibly imprudent decision to continue his career contrary to a doctor’s advise, and a team supports that unwise decision with an uninsured contract (and it would have to be uninsured because Miles couldn’t pass a physical) doesn’t mean that the medical conclusion was incorrect.

So if the controlling determination is a medical conclusion…and this section of the CBA certainly seems to state that is the case…then it seems quite likely that the determination next summer would be the same as the one this spring. That is that Miles has suffered a “career-ending” injury. It’s even possible that no further medical examination would be necessary because carilage can’t self-repair, and that original diagnosis was so conclusive and unambiguous.

My sense is that Portland has a real good chance of regaining the cap-space of the Miles contract even if he does play this coming season.

Finally, without seeing the agreement the NBA and the teams have with the insurance companies, it’s difficult to determine what the ramifications of all this is for insurance. But pondering the language and requirements of that section of the CBA, I suspect that it was written with insurance as a primary component. That would seem to further indicate that medical evidence controls the process and not playing time. Furthermore, while other team’s fans would like to see portland lose the cap-space, I would guess that the NBA and the other team’s front offices would adopt the opposite position. They pay enormous insurance premiums and I’m certain they don’t want to establish precedents, that medical conclusions can be reversed to the benefit of insurance companies at the expense of a team.

He has been removed from the team due to a career ending injury. Therefore even if he dores play again, and Paul Allen has to pay him (not the insurance Co.) including luxury tax, so what we have him off our roster so that we can sign other more immportant players sucha as Batum.

Roster spot s has been the teams biggest limitqation not salary. Darius will never be on the Blazer roster again period; problem solved.