Miles Contract Returning to Portland

[d-train]

The 10-game rule appears to do nothing other than turn an objective process of determining career-ending injuries into a subjective decision by David Stern. This is clearly not the intention of the CBA.

David Stern can't have it both ways. He can't say Miles’ playing in 10 games proves he still has a special and unique talent that makes him a viable NBA player despite the possibility of a team playing him only to gain an edge over a competitor in the FA market and also say that a team would acquire Miles and not play him only for the purpose of preserving salary cap space.

David Stern's own actions prove the 10-game test is not a valid objective measure of anything.

[d-train]

Do you really think that a player who gets minutes in 10 NBA games could be considered disabled enough to have a career ending injury?

Yes

Do you really think a disabled player with a career ending injury could play in 10 NBA games without it being a completely transparent sham (like AC Green hobbling out for one possession to extend the consecutive games streak.)

Making it through training camp and being a late cut, playing decently in the preseason, making an active roster - all these things pretty much disprove the notion that he has a career ending injury and that the Blazers should get cap relief. Making sure he plays in 10 games is just an extra level of security to make sure no one is trying to screw the Blazers with a sham signing...

And Miles' strong performance the other night completely shattered any notion of it being a sham...he may or may not be quite worthy of an roster spot, or worthy of playing in 10 games, but he OBVIOUSLY does not have a career ending injury.

Allan Houston is an example of a player with a career-ending injury that for 10 minutes can play as well as some starting NBA guards.

[Three34]

Hey chakdaddy. In this, the CBA forum, we are an argumentative and often impersonable bunch of bastards. But please don't be offended by this smiley'free corner of the NBA universe. We have great make-up sex.

[chakdaddy]

The 10-game rule appears to do nothing other than turn an objective process of determining career-ending injuries into a subjective decision by David Stern. This is clearly not the intention of the CBA.

David Stern can't have it both ways. He can't say Miles’ playing in 10 games proves he still has a special and unique talent that makes him a viable NBA player despite the possibility of a team playing him only to gain an edge over a competitor in the FA market and also say that a team would acquire Miles and not play him only for the purpose of preserving salary cap space.

David Stern's own actions prove the 10-game test is not a valid objective measure of anything.

Everything you say seems backwards to me. JPlaying in 10 games *IS* an objective, empirical test, that can disprove a relatively *subjective* medical examination! Yes, maybe someone could game the system, but the proof of playing in 10 games sure seems more objective and empirical than a medical exam a year ago.

And those two positions of Stern's are in no way contradictory! The idea that 10 games is enough proof obviously is compatible with the notion that Portland could bench a non-disabled player to keep him from getting to those 10 games! I guess your point is that he's being suspicious of Portland but not of Memphis; but 10 games is the agreed upon criteria in the CBA, and I don't see any reason to not stick to it.

I think Stern's position is that, why should he question the motiviation of signing a guy who has proven himself healthy enough to score 13 points in 14 minutes and to meet the criteria of playing in 10 games. Even if Memphis' intent was dubious, all they did was give Miles the opportunity to demonstrate that he is not disabled. Even if he didn't really warrant the signing or the playing time, it seems obvious that he is healthy enough to satisfy the spirit of the 10 game rule. Like I keep saying, we're testing whether he is truly disabled, we're not testing whether he "legitimately deserves to be in the rotation for 10 games."

BTW, if Allan Houston and an NBA team were interested in prolonging his career by playing him 10 minutes a game....then it shouldn't/wouldn't be considered a 'career ending injury' anymore.

[FGump]

Chakdaddy, I really don't buy any of that at all. Logically, your argument just doesn't follow, because all you're using is circular reasoning (which proves nothing). Even if you find circular reasoning sufficient, it isn't.

[loserX]

The 10-game rule appears to do nothing other than turn an objective process of determining career-ending injuries into a subjective decision by David Stern. This is clearly not the intention of the CBA.

David Stern can't have it both ways. He can't say Miles’ playing in 10 games proves he still has a special and unique talent that makes him a viable NBA player despite the possibility of a team playing him only to gain an edge over a competitor in the FA market and also say that a team would acquire Miles and not play him only for the purpose of preserving salary cap space.

David Stern's own actions prove the 10-game test is not a valid objective measure of anything.

Out of curiosity, what would you have him do? The CBA has to set some kind of limit to determine whether a player can play again or not. I don't actually see the contradiction you're referring to.

The 10-game measure isn't subjective at all...it's in fact very objective. The medical PREDICTIONS originally asserted by the doctors are the test that was subjective. Playing in ten games is a finite, easily assessable measure. But it may be arbitrary. I'll buy that.

[killbuckner]

If this were a case where Miles were basically going out there with a crutch in one hand and only for the last minute of blowouts where it was clear he couldn't produce at all I'd have a ton of sympathy for the blazers case. But at this point it looks like Miles has every intention of earning a contract for next season. If he has the ability to play legitimate minutes and has the desire to continue his career then he absolutely should go back on the blazers cap.

[FGump]

Out of curiosity, what would you have him do? The CBA has to set some kind of limit to determine whether a player can play again or not. I don't actually see the contradiction you're referring to.

The 10-game measure isn't subjective at all...it's in fact very objective. The medical PREDICTIONS originally asserted by the doctors are the test that was subjective. Playing in ten games is a finite, easily assessable measure. But it may be arbitrary. I'll buy that.

Agreed.

But the 10-game measure has meaning only in a world where all the teams are signing and using players solely for their potential to play. Absent that, it stops being any sort of legitimate test.

What the rule doesn't address (and what the rule-makers probably didn't consider) is the possibility of a team taking a not-able-to-contribute ex-player, awarding him a minimum salary deal, playing him for meaningless minutes in 10 games in a season, merely for the purpose of wrecking another team's cap. There is no need for the player to be worth playing, in that scenario. And the player, even if he can't play, would welcome the windfall of a million dollars for 10 minutes of play over 8 months. All he has to do is run up and down the court a few times and pretend not to hurt.

Or, the alternate possibility of a team stashing a recovered player on their roster and preventing him from playing, merely to preserve their own cap.

In the former example, the player still had a career-ender ...yet is deemed healthy. In the latter case, the player was healthy ...yet is still deemed subject to a career ender. So the rule itself wasn't accurately able to separate healthy from career-ender in those situations.

What the league did (in denying the waiver claim) was to unilaterally eliminate the possibility of one of those potential mis-labeling possibilities. What Portland tried to do (in their email) was eliminate the other. But the rule, all by itself, was NOT sufficient to do the trick.

[LarryCoon]

1. If Portland's waiver claim was in good faith, that implies he is healthy and that any other team's signing is clearly *NOT* a sham.

Well, not necessarily. Portland COULD (I'm just arguing this point, not claiming this is what they are actually thinking) be saying, "We thought, and still think, that Miles has suffered a career-ending injury. However, it appears there may be reason to suspect this conclusion. Therefore, if he is going to come back, then we want him to come back with us, so we can derive the benefit. However, if he is indeed not able-bodied, then our claiming him has a secondary benefit of preventing other teams from signing him just to trot him out there for a few games and collect a tax windfall from us. We're not saying teams necessarily have that motive, and our reason for claiming him is principally a basketball one, but this waiver claim kills two birds with one stone."

It's a cogent argument, but one that either wasn't made, or the league didn't buy. They could have done it on an interpretation of the waiver requirement. Gaining benefit of this relief requires waiving the player, and by re-signing him or claiming him from another team you no longer meet this requirement (with the "but we DID waive him" excuse not flying). Or, they could have simply seen it as a big enough can of worms that they denied it simply based on a strong suspicion of circumvention (which is their prerogative), noting that if Miles & the Blazers wanted to hook up in the free agent market then they could do so.

One additional point -- we can't really use Miles' most recent performance as proof that his injury really wasn't career ending. For instance, we don't know how much pain he's really in, and he COULD decide today that he just can't take the pain any more. Or his doctor could take a look at it and say, "I know you want to come back, and looked good in your last game, but you're doing further damage to your knee with every additional game you play, and I strongly recommend you don't play any more."

(edits for stupid typos...)

[Three34]

What the rule doesn't address (and what the rule-makers probably didn't consider) is the possibility of a team taking a not-able-to-contribute ex-player, awarding him a minimum salary deal, playing him for meaningless minutes in 10 games in a season, merely for the purpose of wrecking another team's cap. There is no need for the player to be worth playing, in that scenario. And the player, even if he can't play, would welcome the windfall of a million dollars for 10 minutes of play over 8 months. All he has to do is run up and down the court a few times and pretend not to hurt.

Indeed. But - and it's a big but - this isn't that. Miles's condition is never going to improve, but it's good enough to get him in the NBA. He's there on merit, regardless of what his long term prognosis is.

[Dunkenstein]

What the rule doesn't address (and what the rule-makers probably didn't consider) is the possibility of a team taking a not-able-to-contribute ex-player, awarding him a minimum salary deal, playing him for meaningless minutes in 10 games in a season, merely for the purpose of wrecking another team's cap.

I believe if a team signed your not-able-to-contribute ex-player and played him for ten games merely to ruin another team's cap, the league would recognize this for what it was and use your now famous "Because We Can" clause and not let this hurt the other team's cap.

And as I've expressed before, I believe that the people in the team front offices are essentially gentlemen and wouldn't do something like this, if only because they would be ostracized by the rest of the front office personnel in the league. Front office guys can appreciate when one GM gets the better of another GM in an honest deal, but one GM screwing another team in the manner you describe above would not be tolerated.

[killbuckner]

We get why a team might want to play a non-contributing player, but why would a "not able to contribute player" would go through all that work for a non-guaranteed contract when they were already getting the full amount owed to them even if they don't play at all? The only reason I can see is that the player wants to continue their career. And when you sign someone to a big contract, you don't get to wipe them off the books just because they had an injury that greatly reduced their effectiveness. Its only if they have an injury that ends their career. The blazers were counting on the fact that Miles would be content to collect his money and play Xbox all day. But he has worked his ass off to get his body ready to be a NBA player again and at this point the money should go back on the Blazers cap.

[chakdaddy]

One additional point -- we can't really use Miles' most recent performance as proof that his injury really wasn't career ending. For instance, we don't know how much pain he's really in, and he COULD decide today that he just can't take the pain any more. Or his doctor could take a look at it and say, "I know you want to come back, and looked good in your last game, but you're doing further damage to your knee with every additional game you play, and I strongly recommend you don't play any more."

But, that's exactly reason we have the 10 game rule. The CBA sets the specific threshold of 10 games as the point where the "career ending injury" is officially negated and disproved. Even in the scenarios you suggest, since the 10 games are up, it's considered a "new" injury and they can reapply for relief in another year.

If that happened to Miles right now it would look funny falling right at the 10 games, but that's how it goes. 10 games seems like a decent threshhold, it would disqulaify non-comebacks like Chris Webber and DeJuan Wagner in the past couple of years.

Also, including preseason games seems very reasonable if we are trying to assess health rather than competence.

It seems like a lot of people think the 10 game rule should be assessing competence. But there are so many borderline guys out there, there are tons outside the NBA who would be reasonable signings, there are plenty in the NBA who would be reasonable omissions...making it back to the level of a borderline NBA player ought to be enough to establish health in this situation.

Some people seem to be decrying a double standard; but signing a guy in order to bench him is shady regardless of the ulterior motive; while signing a borderline player like Miles doesn't raise too many eyebrows even with a possible ulterior motive.

[chakdaddy]

What the rule doesn't address (and what the rule-makers probably didn't consider) is the possibility of a team taking a not-able-to-contribute ex-player, awarding him a minimum salary deal, playing him for meaningless minutes in 10 games in a season, merely for the purpose of wrecking another team's cap.

I believe if a team signed your not-able-to-contribute ex-player and played him for ten games merely to ruin another team's cap, the league would recognize this for what it was and use your now famous "Because We Can" clause and not let this hurt the other team's cap.

Exactly my thoughts. If the signing were not legitimate, it would be painfully obvious when the guy steps on the court. If it's not obvious, it's hard to justify questioning the signing - borderline guys get 10 day contracts all the time.

[FGump]

Chakdaddy, all of that is understood, but at the end of the day you haven't really argued that the 10-game rule is actually definitive after all ...which is exactly what others have been saying.

You believe it's the 10-games "IF he looks okay to the NBA office" or "IF there doesn't seem to be something shady going on." And that's exactly what others have been telling you: 10-games all by itself can tell us nothing conclusive about whether the injury was in fact a permanent impairment. Along with the 10 games, there also needs to be some sort of qualitative oversight regarding the content of the 10 games worth of play. And maybe that is actually an unwritten part of the enforcement of the rule.

[Three34]

You can't write a rule that supercedes common sense. If someone flat out can't go, it's obvious to the eyes, and is down to human discretion. The only thing to do is hope something this underhanded never happens.

[chakdaddy]

Along with the 10 games, there also needs to be some sort of qualitative oversight regarding the content of the 10 games worth of play. And maybe that is actually an unwritten part of the enforcement of the rule.

Sure, if you want to make it completely subjective, unnecessarily complicated, and raise the bar for determining a player to be "not disabled" to a standard that half the healthy scrubs in the league wouldn't achieve...

The CBA defined the threshold that holding up for 10 games disproves a career ending injury, I really don't see any way to improve on that. Common sense and the "because we can" rule will always be there to prevail in the case of any truly blatant funny business. And common sense says that signing a guy who got good reviews in training camps and scores nearly a point a minute over 20 minutes is not blatant funny business.

[casey]

Common sense and the "because we can" rule will always be there to prevail in the case of any truly blatant funny business.

And the not so truly blatant situations that are still funny business?


On a not all that related note, anybody know how Martell Webster's contract is structured. Sham's got it at an even $5Mil each year. But Storyteller's got it with the max 10.5% raises.

[Dunkenstein]

Webster's contract is not flat. It has 10.5% raises.

[chakdaddy]

Common sense and the "because we can" rule will always be there to prevail in the case of any truly blatant funny business.

And the not so truly blatant situations that are still funny business?

...get the benefit of the doubt as an apparently healthy player, who is playing, is considered to not have a career ending injury, satisfying the spirit of the rule, even if it may have taken funny business or an ulterior motive to get him the opportunity to demonstrate his health.