Celtics sign Darius Miles...

[BruceO]

former phenom is according to wiretap trying to make a comeback. Now alot has been said about his charector, the ten day suspension and whether or not he's healthy or not. His maturity has been questioned but he has in general only been in immature teams that are none playoff contenders.
He's not a bust per se. maybe people expected better numbers from a former number three pick but I've done the research and he competed with alot of the SF in the league with exception to few.
He claims he's not in game shape but he's 100% healthy. If he's healthy ( and not as a result of steroids or anything else perfomance enhacing needed to heal him) and available would you want your team to take him in.
Also I want to know what legit areas of concern they have with him. If you're going to say stuff like he's going to be a cancer you have to back it up with legit reasons as to whether he was in the past and if he'll remain so after being a father.

[farzi]

He was extremely racist towards Mo Cheeks.
He's had multiple knee surgeries.
Didn't work towards coming back, gained a lot of weight post surgery.
Multiple legal problems as well as suspensions
HE WAS DEEMED TO HAVE SUFFERED A CAREER ENDING INJURY BY A DOCTOR JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO.

[5DOM]

poor blazers if he makes the return

[adarsh1]

I hope he makes it and I hope the 9 million goes back on the books of the Blazers...not that I don't like the Blazers..it would just make games between Portland and whoever has Miles more interesting

[Serpo]

Somebody will sign him now getting playing time is another thing but he's going to very cheap and some teams will think that there's not much risk and sign him to something that isn't guaranteed.

[BruceO]

[quote="farzi"]He was extremely racist towards Mo Cheeks.
I kinda wonder what was said here, how do you demonstrate racism between essentially two people from one race,

He's had multiple knee surgeries. (baron davis, gilbert arenas, Jarvis Hayes, wade, kidd and grant hill have all had enough to sit out for a while)

Didn't work towards coming back, gained a lot of weight post surgery.

He's working with athletic perfomance in arizona and is rumoured to be back to a low body fat percentage. I'd look into this, if his workout is legit he's showing athleticism again. says in the past the trainers in portland didnt help him rehab well

Multiple legal problems as well as suspensions. As far as his recent ones I'd go here

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-3 ... -Test.html

and here to listen to the last 3/4 of it
http://955thegame.c om/Portals/0/media/B FT7-8-08HR3.mp3




HE WAS DEEMED TO HAVE SUFFERED A CAREER ENDING INJURY BY A DOCTOR JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO.[/quote]

as far as what I know the blazers were really trying to get rid of his contract. I'd go here again to listen to some of the things thats been brought up. If indeed he didnt have good enough doctors to help him in portland to rehab correctly ( we have had players in the wizards organization go through bad rehabs as well ) which would benefit portland because if he doesnt rehab well he doesn't get healthy enough to play and you can write him off. If this happened and he found an effective trainer outside the organization who has his best interest at heart primarily, I wouldnt put a recovery past him. People bring up Kemps recovery and how it failed, but from looking around I see kemp attempted his recovery at 36. Who knows maybe dahis recovery isn't really gonna happen, I watched j williams not comeback,dajuan wagner also hasnt made it back into the league solidly and Shaun livingston is now working out for people. His friend thinks darius will play ten games though

http://955thegame.c om/Portals/0/media/B FT7-8-08HR3.mp3

[Wizenheimer]

He was extremely racist towards Mo Cheeks.
I kinda wonder what was said here, how do you demonstrate racism between essentially two people from one race,

He's had multiple knee surgeries. (baron davis, gilbert arenas, Jarvis Hayes, wade, kidd and grant hill have all had enough to sit out for a while)

Didn't work towards coming back, gained a lot of weight post surgery.

He's working with athletic perfomance in arizona and is rumoured to be back to a low body fat percentage. I'd look into this, if his workout is legit he's showing athleticism again. says in the past the trainers in portland didnt help him rehab well

Multiple legal problems as well as suspensions. As far as his recent ones I'd go here

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-3 ... -Test.html

and here to listen to the last 3/4 of it
http://955thegame.c om/Portals/0/media/B FT7-8-08HR3.mp3




HE WAS DEEMED TO HAVE SUFFERED A CAREER ENDING INJURY BY A DOCTOR JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO.[/quote]

as far as what I know the blazers were really trying to get rid of his contract. I'd go here again to listen to some of the things thats been brought up. If indeed he didnt have good enough doctors to help him in portland to rehab correctly ( we have had players in the wizards organization go through bad rehabs as well ) which would benefit portland because if he doesnt rehab well he doesn't get healthy enough to play and you can write him off. If this happened and he found an effective trainer outside the organization who has his best interest at heart primarily, I wouldnt put a recovery past him. People bring up Kemps recovery and how it failed, but from looking around I see kemp attempted his recovery at 36. Who knows maybe dahis recovery isn't really gonna happen, I watched j williams not comeback,dajuan wagner also hasnt made it back into the league solidly and Shaun livingston is now working out for people. His friend thinks darius will play ten games though

http://955thegame.c om/Portals/0/media/B FT7-8-08HR3.mp3

if he's claiming that "portland trainers" didn't help him rehab well, then he's full of it. And you repeating the bs isn't too great either.

He gained a reported 40-50 pounds over his playing weight during rehab. Were the trainers holding him down and stuffing pizza and beer down his throat? Of course the trainers would have had to track him down at one of the local strip joints to hold him in the first place. If his recovery and rehab from surgery went poorly or took longer, Miles himself is to blame. Going from 220lbs to 270lbs is proof enough of that.

I think it's irresponsible to imply bad faith on the part of the Blazers, especially basing it upon the word of Darius Miles. There is as much 'evidence' that Miles torpedoed his own recovery because he wanted out of portland, as there is for the other narrative. That is to say: none.

Did portland want out form under his contract?...you bet they did. Just about every team in the league has a contract they'd like to jettison. And when they got their doctor's report about the condition of Miles's knee they decided to use the process outlined in the CBA concerning career-ending injuries. After all, Miles wasn't close to being the player they gave a 9 million a year contract to, and would almost certainly never be. And an independent orthopedic surgeon was the one who reached a medical conclusion concerning the condition of the knee.

You have basically accused the Portland organization of unethical behavior: that they deliberately tried to impede and derail the rehab of Miles from his surgery. I'd say you need to supply a lot more evidence then the statements of a guy like Miles, especially considering his past, and who faces a 10 game suspension for drug use if and when he does return.

[Red Robot]

A few areas of concern:

He plainly stopped trying in games. I defended Miles during a year or so of lackluster play. He was an underrated defender, I would argue one of the better team defenders in the league among wings. Then, when the team was playing poorly and he was dissatisfied with his minutes or teammates or something, he stopped putting out effort. He went from a great defensive player to a terrible one in a week or two. He made a similar transition from a distributor to a selfish player. In his final year or so, he was simply ineffective as an NBA player.

I don't know what he said to Cheeks in the "racism" incident, but the point is he exploded at the coach, challenged his authority, and said it didn't matter whether the team won or lost. And it wasn't just the one incident. He carried this attitude for at least a season or so.

As far as I know, Miles' knee surgeries and problems are more serious than those of anyone who has managed a comeback. Not to say he couldn't do it, especially after his long recovery. There's absolutely no way I'd sign him to a muli-year contract, because he could be done at basically any time. It seems like all the interested teams would be offering one-year deals though.

I think it's funny Miles accuses Portland's staff of not helping him rehab adequately. That seems to he his attitude about the team in general. Not only is his credibility low, but the team did a fine job with other players in the same situation. It's also totally baseless to suggest, as someone in this thread did, that the team deliberately sabotaged his rehab. It was definitely in the interest of the Blazers to have him recover as completely as possible. I haven't paid close attention to his rehab, but there did seem to be a period where he didn't work very hard, followed by a more recent push to really get into shape.

[Rocky5000]

If he can touch the top of the square on the backboard, after a strenuous workout, I don't think his career is over. His workout with the Suns was an 8 out of a 10, when he worked out with the Celtics, the workout was called "impressive." Whether or not Portland has anything to do with his poor rehab, or the injury evaluation, it looks like the Doctors were wrong about his career being over.

[HTown_TMac]

The thing is how will his body (knee) hold up through the entire season plus more...

[greenbeans]

there goes Portland's "icing on the cake" player. . id like the C's to give em a shot, one last damn good chance

[JoshB914]

There is no reason to say Portland sabotaged his rehab, but there is absolutely reason to believe that the things they have said publicly about Miles aren't completely true. Remember the Blazers had to do all of this to get Miles off the cap in the first place.

I would love to see Darius break back into the league. He was a very talented player, and this whole ordeal hopefully humbled him a bit.

[BballFanAddict]

Just some facts for those pondering this situation:

1. A 3rd party doctor that was approved by the players association is who determined Darius' injury to be career ending

2. Even if Darius plays the 10 games, if he again is injured, Portland can petition to remove his cap hit.

3. Even with the huge $9 million cap hit, Portland will still have approximately $15 million of cap space next year, and a ton of young talent.

For me personally, I don't care if Darius comes back into the league. Not sure what Portland would use $24 million of cap space next summer for anyway - we aren't signing Kobe Bryant! And, frankly, the Blazers need veteran leadership and help but by no means to they need a veteran who is the "man" and demands $15 to $25 million.

Finally, do I think Darius got a fair shake in Portland? Absolutely. Portland over paid this guy who was blessed with talent but did not possess the drive and never put in the effort. Of course now that it is do or die he wants to make the effort. I have no sympathy for this guy.

[NetsForce]

Darius Miles is going to be this year's most improved player. He's going to make people start saying Nicolas Batum the french guy who struggles in summer league play who?

[yunggunz]

If I am any team in the NBA I sign him for two reasons.

A) It will cost the blazers an extra $9 mill this season (on top of the $9 mill they have to pay him anyways), and everyone knows it was an absolute joke that they got the career ending exemption. If nothing else, sign him just to reverse the cop-out that they got. If Kenyon Martin can come back full strength from 2 microfractures, there is no way Miles' was "career ending".

The Blazers lose cap room for next off season as well. They will still have enough to sign a pretty big name player, but not if they want to bring back webster frye and another free agent.

B) Miles is a hell of a talent. This is low-risk high-reward type stuff, and you get to kick your opponent in the balls while you are at it.

[blzrfan]

KP said in an local interview that Miles is in danger of having reconstructive knee replacement if he tries to come back. His knee basically has no cartilage, it's bone to bone. One of the doctors who looked at Miles said if it were his son, he would tell him not to play anymore. Miles might be able to workout, but he will not pass a physical. There's no point in signing Miles unless he is a rotation player and he can't be a rotation player with the way his knee looks.

[Pugsley_2491]

i wanna see what he can do playing for the suns

[NetsForce]

It's hard to tell what Miles' situation really is when Miles was trying to come back last year there was a lot of smoke / bs put out by the Blazers, now obviously not everything they were saying was a lie, most of it was probably true, but it was obvious the Blazers were just trying to force Miles into "retiring" from the NBA.

[candy for lunch]

I'd love to hear what his remaining cartilage thinks about this.

[blzrfan]

It's hard to tell what Miles' situation really is when Miles was trying to come back last year there was a lot of smoke / bs put out by the Blazers, now obviously not everything they were saying was a lie, most of it was probably true, but it was obvious the Blazers were just trying to force Miles into "retiring" from the NBA.

This complete BS and untrue. Nobody can force someone to retire. Blazers had multiple doctors look at his knee, a Blazer doctor and an independent doctor approved by the NBA/NBAPA. They both concluded that Miles was medically unfit to play professional basketball and his career was over. There is no conspiracy theory or smoke. These are facts.

Miles can run and jump, but every time he does that, he is going to damage his knee and lead to a permanent injury which would require knee replacement and he would walk with a limp for the rest of his life.

He can impress all he wants in workouts, but his knee will not pass a physical.