Hadn’t heard this yet. I can only shake my head at the Blazers. I mean, they’ve done a great

job building their current team. But their handling of the whole D-Miles thing is messed up.

Darius Miles just logged minutes in game 9.

there is a huge lack of understanding of the extent of the Darius situation around the league, most seem to only know what has been spouted out by most media outlets over the past week and not what has happened over the past two years of this saga. Here is a quick summation of it (i didn’t write it, but it hits on the major points)

http://dariusfacts.blogspot.com/

The fact of the matter is, the blazers followed to a T what was best for the team AND what was best for Darius, now an obscure rule is coming to bite them in the ass and they are doing everything they can to avoid it, i promise you if this had happened to your team you would be as upset about it as we are. People are clammoring about how “unfair” the Blazers are being towards Darius, which is anything but the case. Right now the teams of the league see a way to screw over the up and coming Blazers and are doing everything in their power to make sure that they will be, and are hiding behind the “noble come back of Miles” to do it. end of story.

anyone else looking forward to Tyson Vs Joel: Round 2 on Feb. 2nd?

the Blazers are getting screwed by the rule. It’s oddly constructed.

The reason they went to sign Darius is because they knew that the league wouldn’t let them. By disallowing that move, the NBA judged Portland’s motives, and deemed them harmful to Darius.

This sets up a legal scenario where the Blazers can claim that the NBA has judged on motives against them. Stern and his cronies have, legally, assumed that the Blazers were acting in bad faith and the Grizzlies were acting in good faith. This won’t hold up in court.

Here’s the thing. The letter made no sense by itself. And the “attempt” to sign Darius makes no sense in a vacuum. But combine the two… and the Blazers are setting up an interesting legal case.

How can the NBA legislate the motives of teams? Portland can even use their injury problems at small forward as legal evidence that they wanted Miles.

The Vulcans, who run the Blazers, saw that the rule was going to screw them. To avoid that situation entirely, they made these two moves to set up a “bad-faith” court argument. As far as in the legal courts, this was a beautiful move.

but the “valiant comeback?” This is a guy who took two years and refused to rehab. Only when it got in his head that he could “stick it to the man,” as Jack Black would say, did he begin to work out and try to comeback. He was sitting as stationary as a beached whale after his microfracture… gained upwards of forty pounds.

Darius gets paid no matter what. Listen, here are the relevant facts. Darius wants to play. Darius is able to play. If Darius can and does play, his salary counts against the Blazers cap this year and next, pushing the Blazers over the luxury cap. Therefore, the Blazers do not want him to play. But if he is able to playthey cannot on good faith prevent him from playing. Darius is an adult and can judge on his own what risks he may undertake.

Darius put up I think 13 points in 12 Minutes last night. That’s why the Grizzlies want him. But even if it was “to screw” the Blazers, that makes sense. Ashas been pointed out, if the Blazers breach the luxury threshold, then the Grizzlies gets share of that tax. So why wouldn’t they do it? The rule is stupid, rarely used, and now we can see why. It induces an indicia of umreliability in cap management. The Blazers tried it knowing the risks and got burnt when it became obvious they didn’t deserve the exemption (if Darius plays one more second of ball, that is). I can’t fathom why anyone but a Blazer fan would have any empathy for Portland in this situation.