They can’t interfere with Miles’ right to want to work

If this is true, do you think that Miles has a helluva lawsuit opportunity against Portland?

Thanks for sharing that article, Trojan.

I’d love to see how the lawyers for Portland would try to prove the intent of any team that signs Miles, because that’s what they would have to do. They would have to prove that the signing was malicious in intent, when any team who signs him would simply have to say that they were trying to improve their team in any way they could.

All this aside, isn’t it a bit ridiculous that a specific number of games is required to counteract the diagnosis of career-ending. I understand that there has to be some sort of litmus test, but the guy is clearly still capable of playing the game of basketball at the NBA level (he’s just not a good player at the NBA level anymore).

And I suggest reading it if you’re interested in all of it.

First, I remain adamant that we not sign Miles if we do not need him, and we don’t. Bad ju-ju.

Second, I recall when this was a topic of conversation here earlier in the year and a couple of Blazers fans visited with a “Meh” attittude, appearing not to care of the fate of Darius Miles. Based on the gazillion thread posts on Blazers Edge since the publishing of this memo, it would appear otherwise.

Third, do the Blazers as a franchise prefer to take on Darius Miles in court as opposed to having to pay his $9 million (I think that’s right) contract next year and take on the salary cap implications? Because that is how it seems to me. No matter how the memo is worded, if Miles does not get one more ten day contract between now and the end of the season, he at least has enough to take the Blazers to court, and may have enough to win. And perhaps that is OK with Paul Allen. Perhaps the damages would be less than $9 million, since the memo really only impacts Miles’ employment for this year. And even if “pain and suffering” sent the amount over $9 million, would Allen care if the net result was still the cap space that he craves for a potential big signing in 2009?

Interesting days in Portland.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-38-27/Darius-Miles—Cap-Space—E-mails—Oh-My-.html

Relevant text:

Before we get to talking about threatening e-mails and all that, let’s back up for a minute, and all agree on one thing: Darius Miles is not, and should not be, medically retired.

Portland’s claim, supported by an independent doctor, that they should get salary cap relief for his career-ending injuries was a mistake. And now there’s a 27-year-old who demonstrably would like to play basketball for a living. The Collective Bargaining Agreement’s standard for assessing when a medical retirement was a mistake appears to have been a good one. Even before ten games are up, it’s pretty clear.

In my opinion, that’s all that matters.

Can we medically retire Kenny Thomas so we don’t have to pay him either? I’d say his injuries are career ending =)

What if we signed Miles and traded him to Portland for Bayless since we were gonna draft him before the Blazers “screwed” us?

(I don’t really mean that, just trying to stir things up!)

so this may have been covered.

I’m pretty sure the Blazers are not paying Miles right now, their insurance is. So, if he becomes “unmedically retired” I thin Paul Allen would be on the hook for all of his salary this year, next year, and probably have to reimburse the insurance company for any money they payed out, as well as any luxury tax.

This is a dick move by the Blazers and Miles should sue and in my opinion should be compensated. I hope some team takes a chance on him if they think he can help them.

You can’t say that the memo applies only to teams that would sign Miles in bad-faith. If every team knows that a law suit will likely be following the signing of Miles, no team will want the headache.

There might’ve been a team willing to try him out, but knowing that the trial-period (of Miles) will come with a legal trial, is contractual interference, IMO (or at least the argument is there).

Also, it is not up to the team signing Miles to prove that it was legit, it’s up tp the Blazers to prove that it wasn’t legit (by a preponderence). They have to know that proving intent is very difficult, so the threat of legal action was simply used as a deterent.

BY the way, I don’t think it’s fair to say that if a team signs Miles and only plays him in a few games that it could be used as proof of bad-faith. Look at Kenny Thomas — dude never plays, but still gets paid.

They just got lucky he got injured and were able to get out of it. How many times do teams sign players to horrible contracts an are not able to take it back? Portland got lucky (still an unfortunate situation for Miles though) and now their luck is coming back to bite them. These are the rules, you knew them before the contract was signed and before Miles was deemed medically retired. What does it matter if Miles was a bad person or a model citizen, he has the right to work and the Blazers organization is tring to interfere. How would you feel if you made it back from an injury and were not allow to come back to work?

Yes, Portland only warned those who would sign him only to mess with their cap but how do you distinguish that? I don’t buy it for one second they were just ‘warning’ some teams. If you don’t think this will affect every team’s decision to sign him you are not living in this world.

NOTE: Apologies in advance, I pieced this together while multi-tasking, I hope it’s not too disjointed.

Aren’t all of the Luxury Tax dollars split between the teams under the cap? If I’m a team under the cap, and could sign a player to a 10-day contract to fill a temporary need, why not sign the guy who will put some money into my pocket at the same time (two birds, and all that)?

The argument by the Blazers that the NBA is a joint venture and that other owners shouldn’t try to “screw” them is ludicrous. If anything, the Blazers having to put Miles’ salary back on the books helps more members (everyone under the cap) than not (PDX).

And this is completely within the rules that everyone has agreed to follow. If this situation leads the league to decide that 10 games isn’t enough of a litmus test, then they change the rules.

Teams circumvent the rules all the time and nobody blinks an eye (trading a player and waiting the appropriate time to “re-sign” them after they’re waived – a rule to stop teams from doing what they still do anyway) . . . and yet a team giving a someone a 10-day contract is supposed to strike outrage? What a joke.

10 games isn’t very much. It’s only a hair over 1/10th of a season (12%). If there was any chance that Miles would attempt a comeback, then Portland should have either ( a ) not requested the Medical Retirement, ( b ) put themselves in a position so that if his salary came back on the books they could take the hit, or ( c ) just taken the hit because they gambled and lost.

I’m with Section in that I don’t want the Kings to sign him (for various reasons, but Section’s “bad juju” is one of them). That said, I really hope someone takes a chance on him after this situation. I didn’t really care before, but this just seems shady to me, and if you take the “personal” opinions out of it (like Otis suggested – So I shouldn’t cry for Darius Miles because he’s a millionaire, and has plenty of money . . . but I should cry for the Blazers/Paul Allen because WHY?), it seems even shadier.

Pritch-slap? Portland got Wall-assed.

if you suspect a team is doing something outside the rules to harm your franchise, get more information and deal with those teams directly.

I agree that this is the shady part of this whole league-wide letter issue. It definitely appears a bullying stance to me, since they sent it to every team instead of waiting until he was signed to an unguaranteed contract and notifying the team in question that it would be investigating for signs of bad faith. Then, if a team was signing him with ill intentions and decided it would be in a legally untenable position, they could just waive him at the appropriate time. Ultimately, it’s just posturing for a later legal battle, should it come to that (which I can’t imagine it will). It would seem that this sort of litigation might harm the oft-mentioned “joint venture.”

And while I’m at it, my personal opinion is that a report of an anonymous team executive speculating that (not his team, but) another team might sign Miles in bad faith shouldn’t be sufficient reason to adopt this stance. The fact that Miles might go unsigned this season, might be signed in good faith, or might be signed in bad faith has been obvious since the outset of his comeback.

Darius Miles wasn’t designated for medical retirement by the Blazers. He was given that in concurrence with their own doctors, as well as a doctor appointed by the Players Assocation, the same Players Assocation that is now saying the Blazers are trying to hurt Miles’ future earnings. Mmm, okay.

Secondly, the point of the letter was to bully teams, and it clearly didn’t work. But, the letter only made it harder for Portland to clear up the real issue, as jscot is dilligently (and unsuccessfully here) attempting to point out. That issue is, whether any team did this to screw over the Blazers. And, I think the Grizzlies are.

Why did the Grizzlies cut Miles? They didn’t need to cut Miles. (I think the Blazers anticipated the cut & re-sign of MIles by Memphis. Which is why the memo came out when it did.) And, I think this is an attempt by Michael Heisley to circumvent the rules. This is a low blow by Memphis, done in an unusual way. I would find it a bit easier to believe that Memphis did anything honorable here had they not cut Miles. Which they did. I hope the end result is that Heisley ends up losing ownership for such a crass, and ultimately, back end type of blow.

Now, I will admit I agree with Portland fans they are being screwed. I will agree that Paul Allen made the mistake by signing MIles to the original contract (something that Blazers’ probably haven’t totally lost sight of). I agree that Darius Miles has a right to play basketball, even though it probably isn’t an intelligent move on his part.

Now, the thing I don’t agree on. Darius Miles continuing to be paid his enormous contract while essentially screwing the team he was playing for, by playing for another. He should be able to do one, but not the other. That’s the unfortunate angle in all this. The other part of this is the relevance of Eddy Curry. There is no relevance at all in this. Yes, Eddy Curry had a heart condition, but the difference was, it wasn’t deemed significant enough for him not to play. The problem came with the Bulls insisting on tests, and the Knicks signing him without them. That’s not the same situation as the one facing the league with Miles.

It was good of him to do so. It gave the Blazers cap relief, in the event that he couldn’t make it back. Now he is making it back and they don’t qualify for the relief anymore.

About your issue with Miles playing and hurting the Blazers, I think they had to waive the rights to him before he could try out for other teams didn’t they? So, he could be trying to make his comeback for them right now, but they chose to let him go. So, his situation now is very similar to Steve Francis. The Blazers “cut him”, are still paying him, but he’s playing for another team.