He flaunted himself all over Portland for 2 years after his injury and was making no real effort to rehabilitate his knee at the training facility but rather rehab it at strip clubs throwing around the money that ultimately Blazer fans and Paul Allen were paying him. Not until the Blazers got better did he start to see a future for the team and wanted to be around them and take credit. He had all the opportunity in the world for help working to rehabilitate and as someone who broke his femur without having insurance, that being me, Im ticked that he threw that away.
      He spit in the faces of Blazer fans who actually thought he was worth the contract he got after he had that one great season. But Like most immature basketball players with a love for money and not for the game, rather than work to get back at that time and show value for the money he was beiong paid by the Blazers, he chose to be the sterotype for everything that most people who dont like the NBA despise! Go Miles! You have earned our Boo’s here in Portland!

Is he still in a hospital bed recovering from microfracture? Can he walk? Can he run? Can he jump? If he had refused to rehabilitate his knee we wouldn’t even be having this conversation because he would still be on crutches.

You make a better lawyer than a doctor.

that posts without insider information are in some way irrelevant, but posts with wild speculation, where only insider information could be used to substantiate the claims, should be ignored or at least be in some way rebutted.

If you want to add some credibility to this post then give us evidence that Darius shirked his rehab. Yes, I know he gained a lot of weight, but that is common for any athlete when they can not exercise relative to their appetite, so I would say that in itself is not good evidence. You might try and make the case that his long rehab was due to his laziness, but then you would have to contend with the fact he had a serious surgery that was eventually ruled as career ending by an independent doctor. Also, you would have to overcome articles like the this.

As for making a miraculous recovery, Miles was angling to play at the end of last season before his injury was ruled career ending so you cant just say that he was holding out on the Blazers to possibly get a little more money the following season.

The burden is on you to show that Miles willfully deceived people, and I dont think that is the case.

I don’t think it was a master plan at all. I think Darius knew he would make the money either way and was enjoying raking in millions and doing nothing. When the team started to look better with the addition of Oden I think Darius felt he would give a token effort. He certainly isn’t the training beast that Bayless, Oden or even Z-bo is but it didn’t seem like he was trying super hard. I think if he could play as well as he did in his last Memphis game the Blazers wouldn’t have sought to seek medical retirement. I think they would have opted to buy him out or trade him for the ever-hot LeBron lovefest Free Agency summer of 2010. His contract would be valuable. He did not however, recover enough to play ball and so Medical Retirement seemed the best option. Darius hadn’t done enough to recover at that point and his knee was and is something that could go at any time. Once he was “retired” I think Darius ego may have been hurt or it might just have been his agent’s voice in his ear. Regardless, Darius magically became very motivated once either his ego was hurt by the retirement or he thought he could make more money.

 It’s possible Darius or his agent want to hurt Portland but I think it’s more likely they are both simply greedy. If Darius had wanted to play so bad and that is his primary motivation, to play in the NBA, he would have worked harder during his recovery in Portland. I don’t think there are conspiracies on either side to either a) force a retirement that wasn’t warranted (Independent doctor) or b) that Darius and his agent planned in advance to double dip and hurt Portland. Once the double dip was possible they decided, hey lets get a few hundred thousand more and maybe millions down the road if we make a come back.

 No one is some super evil genius conspiring to harm the other on either side of this matter. I do think Darius and his agents are punks, just not “Master Plan” creating punks. I also don’t think KP is some evil genius conspiring with the league to take out unwanted players through “fake” medical retirements. All in all it’s quite simple, easily anticipated greed on the part of Darius and his agent and a stupid medical retirement capspace rule has created a ridiculous situation. The outcome I am hopeful of is that the league changes the rule Darius gets signed without impacting PA or our capspace and everyone but the insurance company is happy.