Amen

published in a local newspaper (e.g., The Oregonian) or a national sports magazine (e.g., Sports Illustrated).

Poor Darius Miles…. :’(

Poor Portland Trailblazers….. :’(

I supose it’s too late to say I liked how darius looked on our bench more than I did on anyone elses. :)

I’m glad we can be done with this for the night anyway ;)

The guys on the team dont hate Darius,I hope the crowd has enough class to get it.

(Zeppelin, of course)

League got it right and everyone should stop crying about it.

We had plenty of time to see if Darius could still play (i.e. keep him or even trade him) and we decided to see if we could get lucky on the medical retirement instead. Not saying it was a bad decision given a young and impressionable team but HQ knew the risks. Their not out anything more than what they would have been keeping him except they may have made some different off-season moves last summer.

We’ve had a lot of good luck lately – maybe this is a karmic speed bump.

Stern only seeks to make money even at the expense of fair play or alienating fanbases.

I swear that half my effort is spent avoiding posts about you-know-who now.

Part of it is about not getting worked up. It’s just not worth it, Portland will be fine either way. The rest of the reason is best left unsaid.

I’m starting to dream of a moratorium on new Darius fanposts, similar to trade fanposts. But having lots of “drawer threads” isn’t the answer either… hopefully the the number of fanposts dwindles as the story withers.

but on the other hand..
1. we could blackmail Stern into bowing to our wishes (with what? not quite sure but there has to be some scandal involving refs that we could imply that we have hard evidence about)
2. we could kidnap Iavaroni and replace him with either a cyborg or maybe just someone who looks like the Griz coach and can not play him for the final of the 10 games
3. we could get Paul Allen to pay people in Memphis to NOT see the Grizzlies until we get our way

or my favorite idea..

We could threaten to secede from the association!!!!

Now, I know what you are thinking.. why aren’t you a president of basketball operations? I blame elitism.. but still, I think that threatening to secede would be the next illogical move if Darius plays the final game. I mean.. think about it.. first.. there’s no way the NBA would want the Blazers to secede so they would obviously have to just give us all of the cap space we wanted and maybe throw in a couple of extra draft picks or a trade exemption or 15% off at the NBA store..

and even in the worse case scenario that they do let us go.. well.. the Blazers would be better off.. we could become the first American franchise of the EuroLeague..

great article. Hope this whole thing settles down real soon.

Incl. preseason? Darius Game Log
In regular season:

Jan 4 vs. Mavs: 2 min, 0 pts, 0 rbs, 0 asts, 0 blks
Jan 6 vs. Wolves: 7 min, 0 pts, 2 rbs, 0 asts, 2 blks
Jan 13 vs. Cavs: 14 min, 13 pts, 0 rbs, 0 asts, 0 blks

Oct 8 versus the 76ers: 16 min, 6 pts, 1 rbs, 1 asts, 0 blks
Oct 10 versus the Cavs: 4 min, 0 pts, 0 rbs, 0 asts, 0 blks
Oct 11 versus the Rockets: 9 min, 0 pts, 4 rbs, 0 ast, 2 blks
Oct 14 versus the Cavs: 13 min, 2 pts, 2 rbs, 0 ast, 0 blks
Oct 16 versus the Nets: 9 min, 1 pt, 0 rbs, 0 ast, 0 blks
Oct 19 versus the Nets: 11 min, 2 pts, 1 rbs, 1 asts, 2 blks

He logged the minutes of about 2 games. As you can see, he plays especially well against the Cavs ;-)

this post rules.

That’s when the current one runs out (six years in existence). It takes two to tango and change it, resulting in lengthy negotiations between the two parties and all kinds of lawyers to work out a new one. There won’t be changes to the letter just to accommodate our case before that. At best we can hope for favorable interpretations of the situation to point out (e.g. today’s decision to not fine the Blazers for the e-mail). We can all agree the current rules are ill defined or vague and don’t fit the case of a player coming back with a different team which is stupid.

But it’s the current situation that has never been tested before, so the league office didn’t really know about all eventualities of this case much less plan for them. Historically they have not looked well upon teams trying to re-acquire their own players they had waived or traded away under different conditions to circumvent league rules or rulings, and implemented waiting period and trade restrictions for that. Which is likely why they strictly denied the Blazers to re-acquire Miles. The CBA also doesn’t say anything about what constitutes a career ending injury (that either is in an external document or not defined at all). It describes under which circumstances you can get cap relief for a player who has been retired. As it stands, if a player logs the ten games, he goes back on your cap. End of story. I don’t expect the league to overturn something here. The Blazers and Pritchard/Penn knew the rules they were evoking well in advance, which is what the Cavs owner Dan Gilbert alluded to in his email. Darius will likely be the first and one of only a handful medical retirements under the current version of the CBA because of how it turned out. Maybe even the only one. Do you think Donnie Walsh of the Knicks wants to worry about Cuttino Mobley deciding his heart condition isn’t that bad after all and returning after all this brouhaha?

    I guess I agree that ultimately the league will conclude that “the rules” worked exactly as they were suppose to, insomuch that they allowed a medical retirement and allowed a player to return. The situation that developed with The Blazers and Darius Miles is fortunately pretty rare. A lot of different things had to play out specificly to get where we are today. Even if the league did nothing, I think the chances of this type of problem happening again relatively rare. Again, lot’s of specific factors in place for years that led us to where we are today. One of which IMO is that there was, even though The Blazers won’t admit it, the rare situation of a team (The Blazers) having a player that we didn’t really want in a state of constant rehab. The Blazers won’t admit it but at some point The Blazers decided Darius wasn’t worth his potential bagage, was no longer going to be able to return and contribute at anything near the level it was once hoped he would and quite honestly I think we started to covet his potential cap space a lot more than the idea that Darius might recover enough to be a potentially distracting, problem causing 12th man on a loaded team of youth and character. So IMO you had the pretty rare situation where a team would rather NOT have a player vs. Darius who at some point realized he liked the N.B.A. lifestyle and WOULD like to stay in the league. Those type of stars don’t often align.

I agree that the league isn’t going to make any changes that would make it easier or more convenient for teams to use medical retirement. For good legitimate reason. They don’t want teams using medical retirement to rid themselves of contracts and cap count. However I disagree with the idea that this was the " impetus for writing the medical retirement rules so strictly in the first place." . The rules do need to be revisited and adjusted. Right now the terms used are far too vague, not far too strict. At the very least the league needs to revisit the standards for applying medical retirement, and the standards for reinstatement of a medically retired player into the league. Could we say that perhaps one doctors opinion independently appointed or not, is not enough? Could we also easily say that the standard of a player must “play” in 10 games in one season, is way too vague. No stipulation as to minutes played simply invites the controversy that erupted. The whole idea that teams would sign Miles to have him simply appear in games primarily just to impact The Blazers negatively would of been avoided if instead of a vague “10 games” standard, it was a more specific total minutes on a court standard. Find out what the average minutes per game played is for the average 9,10,-12th man in the N.B.A. and make reinstatement of the player attempting the comebacks salary against the original team with the contract contigent on the player reaching that minumum of playing “minutes” as opposed to simply “game appearances”. A team signing Miles would be under no obligation of course to play Miles that minumum, they could pay him and use him as much or as little as they wished. But if the “intent” was simply to harm The Blazers they’ed be forced to think about the reality of signing Miles a whole lot more if the re-instatement kicked in after 60-100 (or more) minutes of playing “time” on the court as opposed to the now very vague simply 10 appearances. As the rules are written now, it invites abuse because a team can sign Miles and wheel him out in garbage time for little or no time at all, it more or less becomes he just need to appear. Using playing time would also help ensure that the player really was meeting a standard of actual playing viability. If Miles knee’s aren’t really N.B.A. viable, it will show after 100 minutes within a season of playing time on the court. It can be hidden by just “appearances in the game”. Anyway, maybe I’m being simple on this, but that’s the change I would like to see. I think it helps to close the loophole that has made this a mess for The Blazers and The League.

And, it’s hard to see how what you said was wrong. After all, recent history, pretty much all history under David Stern suggests that’s the only course of action that will be taken. And eventually, something will happen to make sure that this type of thing won’t happen anymore.

Now, this is stroking a ton of ire & envy everywhere and is the hottest topic on StR at the moment (other than the Kings getting flattened worse than a pancake, run over by a semi, by Orlando last night), and if for nothing else, the general agitator was jscot. The funny thing is, most people there don’t WANT to see anything other than the Blazers being humbled in this.

Perhaps it’s time to create a moratorium on this subject earlier than later. And, for whatever it’s worth, this is very unique inofitself. When’s the last time a player rejected being medically retired?

And how we made him play with a potential career ending injury? How things have changed.

Way to put it into perspective, it seems like suing darius makes the most sense since he’s double dipping (taking compensation for being injured and getting paid on 10 contracts at the same time). That seems like collecting unemployment while having a job to me. I’m sure there are a gazillion posts about this already but they are too long to read.

Thank you for putting this into perspective Dave.

there are rules. The league will stick with the rules. The blazers are toast. I also don’t believe they have a legal leg to stand on. Frankly, I think they just got drunk one night and sent a bunch of emails to acquire miles and sue people.

there ya go. Tell the front office to lay of the hooch from now on.

Occasionally it is claimed that the Blazers are no worse off than if Darius hadn’t taken a medical retirement.

That, of course, is false.

Even if we assume that a) Darius would never have played again for the Blazers; and b) is not going to be a legit NBA player again, had Darius not taken the medical retirement and subsequently been waived by the Blazers—we’d still have his contract as an asset on our books. The RLEC is a nice bargaining chip to have; and the DMEC would be a nice chip next year.

But now, even that is gone.

So, the Blazers have been tangibly harmed by the whole thing. Whether that is enough to get any relief, I dunno.

An interesting aside—suppose this all goes to arbitration in the off-season, at which point DM is not under contract with anybody. (Further assume that after 10 games rolls around, interest in Darius as a player wanes). It probably wouldn’t happen—but what would you all think of the prospect of the waiver being rescinded—and Darius’s contract being reinstated, so we CAN trade his carcass for a stiff and a draft pick, should we want to?

is what types of arbitration are available.

Dave, you mention numerous areas where the rules changed, and teams were adversely affected. It certainly happens. However…

…most of those changes happened well in advance, and didn’t suffer from any obvious letter/spirit disagreements or questions of interpretation. This scenario does suffer from a question of interpretation and a letter/spirit disagreement—and the usual means in the NBA for resolving these sorts of questions, in particular concerning a conflict between a team and the league office, is arbitration.

The arbitrators generally don’t care what David Stern thinks… and Paul Allen has beaten the commish in arbitration before (Chris Dudley ring a bell?)

The interesting question is: Is this matter under the jurisdiction of the arbitrator? If not, the Blazers probably are toast—Stern isn’t gonna bend the rules for Allen. If it goes to arbitration, the Blazers could well win.

Finally, there is a third party—the insurance company. I’m not sure what their payout conditions are—it could well be that an abritator (or the league) restores the Blazers cap room and keeps the Miles contract off the books for tax purposes, but the Blazers are forced to pay his salary if and when the insurer refuses to.

Kelly Dwyer, on ball don’t lie, writes an interesting column on the thing; one more sympathetic to the Blazers than most national press on the issue.

One interesting angle, that may or may not be legit—KD suggests that Memphis might be trying to shake down the Blazers—and pull off a “we’ll trade you Darius for Travis Outlaw and a draft pick” deal. I kinda doubt it, though:

• The league would never allow that. If Portland claiming DM off waivers is circumvention, I doubt acquiring him in a trade would be considered kosher.
• Such an offer would be all the evidence the Blazers need to show bad faith on the part of the Grizz. Michael Heisley wouldn’t be so stupid—would he?
• Darius is on a ten-day contract. Wouldn’t do the Blazers any good to make such a trade—Miles can just walk after the 10-day is up and sign somewhere else.
• The Grizz are cheapskates. I seriously doubt this is about acquiring talent; it’s all about the benjamins. Otherwise, why trade Pau for peanuts?

Was that there is the possibility of an appeal even if Miles played the 10 games, and that the eventual outcome could have always come down to that— and is a big part of why I felt like it wasn’t a big deal.

You could always LOSE an appeal, but with the how the rules are currently written, we’re more on the right— we followed the rules, the specific laws didn’t account for a guy playing somewhere else (let alone the spirit of the laws, which is taken into account, don’t take this into account), etc.

The Blazers have supposedly prepared for an appeal since the medical retirement happened, and all of this could be used in the appeal process.

I did not think it was guaranteed that the contract would go back on the books, and sometimes the appeal is mentioned and othertimes it isn’t— so which is it?

Are we able to appeal the contract going back on our cap or not? After that, we’ll deal with how quickly the appeal process can go through, because I could see a situation where we win the appeal, but it’s weeks/months after we could sign anyone or use the cap space, and all we get out of it is the money saved from insurance on Miles’ contract.

Bah, phooey, is what I say.

Mortimer