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Okay, yet another wrinkle in the Darius Miles telenovela. According to the latest from Adrian W. at Yahoo!, the Blazers tried to grab Miles for themselves before resorting to the now-infamous letter of intimidation. I know from fantasy basketball experience that you can't do this. But in the real world, the rejection of Portland's waivers claim was a little more dramatic, and tricky:
So determined to salvage the salary cap space that would come with the foiling of Miles' comeback from a devastating knee injury, Portland president Larry Miller and general manager Kevin Pritchard apparently were willing to stash Miles on the sideline and keep him away from other NBA teams.All that makes perfect sense to me, but I can see why Portland would be pissed. No matter how much Pritchard may have brought it on himself (or been allowed to by other teams), anyone looking to sign Miles is out primarily to screw Portland ... through manipulation of salary cap rules. That's not the same as "circumventing" them, but in the same way that it would have been against the rules for the Blazers to nab Miles, another team doing so would hardly be pure in its intentions. If Miles really had a place in this league, he wouldn't get cut every third day.
In denying the Blazers' move to control Miles, NBA front-office sources say that league executives in New York denied the waiver claim because they believed the Blazers were merely trying to circumvent league salary cap rules.
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
7 comments
Comments
Alright, I’ll get the bat if someone get’s his knee.
by npcPronk29 on Jan 13, 2009 2:07 PM EST reply actions
You can’t blame NBA teams for being offended by that email. It wasn’t fair to miles that portland would threaten legal action to keep him from playing. They probably hurt themselves to because i don’t think too many NBA teams were really looking at miles until that stupid email. All is fair in basketball and war i guess.
by Bahamaace on Jan 13, 2009 7:25 PM EST reply actions
You can’t blame NBA teams for being offended by that email. It wasn’t fair to miles that portland would threaten legal action to keep him from playing. They probably hurt themselves to because i don’t think too many NBA teams were really looking at miles until that stupid email. All is fair in basketball and war i guess.
by Bahamaace on Jan 13, 2009 7:26 PM EST reply actions
I hope someone signs him, he plays above all expectations, and the Trailblazers are forced to send emails to themselves about how idiotic they are.
by CedarPark on Jan 13, 2009 7:57 PM EST reply actions
"If Miles really had a place in this league, he wouldn’t get cut every third day."
Yes, but that’s not really the point. Portland got to take Miles’s salary off their books because he was supposed to be medically incapable of playing basketball, not because he just wasn’t good enough to make an NBA roster. Miles clearly did not suffer a career-ending injury, therefore the Blazers should never have been allowed to not count his salary against the cap.
by picabia on Jan 14, 2009 4:07 AM EST reply actions
That’s what I said at the end. The weird thing is that Miles does seem like he’s being forced into retirement, just not of the medical kind. And his injury wasn’t serious enough that it should have ended his career.
by bethlehemshoals.tsn on Jan 14, 2009 8:36 AM EST reply actions
There’s something else going on with Miles. His basketball career has the funk of death about it, and I don’t think it’s necessarily part of Portland’s mechinations. Maybe he’s medically able to play, but it’s long been rumored that he’s more interested in the entertainment biz than with basketball at this point in his life.
There’s also the story than an independant, leage-appointed examiner did indeed determine that his injury was career-ending: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3549061
by Not_bob on Jan 14, 2009 9:33 PM EST reply actions
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