Subscribe Feed (RSS)Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen (a Portlander, by the way) has received a copy of a memo sent out by Trail Blazer president Larry Miller that threatens other teams that may want to sign Miles. It says:
“Team Presidents and General Managers,
“The Portland Trail Blazers are aware that certain teams may be contemplating signing Darius Miles to a contract for the purpose of adversely impacting the Portland Trail Blazers Salary Cap and tax positions. Such conduct from a team would violate its fiduciary duty as an NBA joint venturer. In addition, persons or entities involved in such conduct may be individually liable to the Portland Trail Blazers for tortuously interfering with the Portland Trail Blazers’ contract rights and perspective economic opportunities.
“Please be aware that if a team engages in such conduct, the Portland Trail Blazers will take all necessary steps to safeguard its rights, including, without limitation, litigation.”
Miles’ agent, Jeff Wechsler, has all along accused the Blazers of trying to blackball his client and it’s possible this memo helps his cause. I don’t know what the team was trying to accomplish with this thing, but there are unintended consequences in a league full of teams that may already resent Paul Allen’s heavy wallet.
Among the people I’ve talked to within the league, nobody can ever remember a note like this going around to other teams, threatening legal action over something like signing a player to a 10-day contract. But on the other hand, the Miles situation has been bizarre for months now.
Tags: Darius Miles, Ian Thomsen, Larry Miller, Paul Allen, Portland Trail Blazers
This is definitely an unusual situation to say the least. Darius is obviously washed up if he can’t make it on Memphis squad. On the other hand it really does seem that Portland has opened itself to being sued. Hopefully Mr Allen’s attorneys got a look at that memo before it was sent and gave it the green light.
I can definitely see a Western Conf team signing Darius to screw Portland on the cap. Will be interesting to watch the drama unfold.
I think the Blazers were smart in letting the league know that they will sue any team who signs Miles for the sole purpose of putting Darius’ contract back on Portland’s books.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I would wager that the League, the owners, and the players association all agreed to this medical retirement rule. When agreed upon, I am sure that all sides felt equally protected. The players still get their salary, and the owners get that money off of their books which allows them to rebuild. Isn’t this a fairly new rule with very little precedence?
Now, because of a loophole, there are owners out there who will try to use this rule to better their position in the free-agent market. Would these owners be happy if the tables were turned. Would they threaten to sue. You bet your behind they would.
There are a lot of smart people in the NBA who can determine whether or not a team is malicious in their signing of Miles. If a team legitimately signs Miles, great, but if not, then expect a lawsuit.
I applaud the front office. They are right on the money.
It shows that the Blazers took the reporting in the Yahoo! Sports article seriously:
“‘Someone is going to scoop him up and play him those two games now,’ one Eastern Conference executive said when told the news on Wednesday night. ‘Portland is screwed.’”
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-milesblazers010709&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
If you have anonymous executives talking about how they are going to sign Darius just to screw over the team, I guess it probably makes sense to remind them that what goes around comes around.
I get the sense that while the Blazers would rather not have Darius play, that if he does in fact sign somewhere and contribute, that they would move on. But if another team signs him simply to screw with them, then they are going to go balastic.
In the end, I don’t think anyone really knows what recourse they would have. The whole situation is screwy.
I’m still much more interested in how we ever got to this place at all. How do two doctors–one independent–conclude that Darius can’t play when it is increasingly apparent that he can? Why couldn’t Darius have worked as hard as he did with Tim Grover before the medical retirement? If he did, this situation would never have happened.
So strange. Thankfully, we only have a few more months of this and then it will all be history and everyone can move on.
I don’t blame the Blazers at all for doing this. If I were a Blazers’ executive, I wouldn’t stand around a let some team take my cap space away without a fight. That’s what I think this is about. They know teams are signing Miles to put the money back on their cap. That is clear. Nobody except Portland wanted Miles when he was healthy and now suddenly everyone wants him?? What do ya think the motive is for these teams? Pretty clear, isn’t it? The Blazers should try to stick it to the teams that are trying to stick it to them in my opinion. I mean, there IS $18 million at stake. Of course, the blazers put themselves in this position, but that doesn’t mean they should not fight it. As for Darius being “black balled”: my heart pumps piss for you Darius. You’re getting $18 million from this team regardless of your situation. You should be thanking them EVERY DAY for signing you to that ridiculous contract. Miles was no good when he was healthy and he’s worse now. Count your blessings Darius.
Any team needing some help could sign him to a 10 day contract just to see if he’d be a fit for their team. As a Blazer fan I don’t want that to happen until that 2 year period is up, but I sure don’t blame a team for trying to improve their team. How would the Blazers prove ill intent? I’m a big fan of the Blazer’s current leadership, but for the first time in a few years, I’m not sure they made the right move with this memo. Be classy and stay above this kind of behavior.
I think Portland made the right move. As being a ‘joint venturer’ in the league, teams should not be able to stick a knife in another organizations back, without any repercussions.
I know if I was anyone short of maybe Mark Cuban, I wouldn’t really want to roll the dice against Paul Allen’s brigade of lawyers.
Darius is a scrub. If he can’t cut it on Memphis, there is no reason for another team to sign him other than to stick it to Portland. Never bet against KP and Paul Allen, when money is on the line.
This has turned out to be quite interesting. The Blazers’ countermove to the Darius show seems to imply that they are resigned to Miles hurting the cap. I was hopeful that they would simply appeal the league as I felt they had a strong case anyway:(independent doctor, drug suspension, followed the rules, etc.)
Best case scenario: Blazers don’t sue, PTB wins an appeal, whatever stupid team takes on Miles loses on the gamble and inherits a “cancer.”
Worst case: Cap gets hit, lose goodwill with other teams, and earns bad PR that the team desperately has tried to erase from previous years.
Another thing: Why is there a double standard going on with all the bloggers out there? On the one hand, people are chastising PDX for such a move, and on the other, they’re praising competitors for signing Darius as a sound, competitive business decision. If anything, it’s a dirty play both ways.
I think one fallacy that even Blazer fan Henry Abbot has made is the idea that Miles being able to run, jump, play effective D and so on for a few minutes in a few games proves he is healthy and the doctor was wrong.
The way I see it the DOctor was saying his knee isn’t sound enough to stand up to the rigors of the NBA, back to back games, 82 games in 6 months, etc. It isn’t that he is a cripple who walks with a limp.
Say he signs a 10 day contract and plays 4 games, Blazers lose under the rules, but what if his knee gives out in game 5? Doesn’t that prove the doctor was right?
Great point eric k. I was thinking the same thing. The dude is playing 2 minutes here, 7 minutes there… A team could roll out Wilt Chamberlain’s corpse in garbage time just to kill Portland’s cap space if they could!!! I have seen the games Darius has played in with Boston (pre-season) and Memphis. It’s BS. The guy does not move well at all. Anyone who saw him with Portland a few years ago knows that he’s a shadow of himself athletically. If he plays normal minutes, he’ll get hurt again I bet. Since when did Abbot become a doctor? Miles will play two more games, get cut and never be seen again illustrating the fact that he’s only there for teams to hurt the blazers cap space.
A Doctor appointed by the league, ok’d by the players union and ok’d by Miles et al…. Ruled that he was done. Why is this even moving forward.
Grigsby, you do have a point. Isn’t there some onus on the player to try his best to rehabilitate his injury? Darius did not make a concerted effort to do so, and as a result, his knee had not shown significant improvement in 2 years. Once he was deemed “unfit for duty” and released with his full salary, then he decided to shed all the weight and pursue a career.
It appears this rule was not clearly thought through, and this case will more than likely result in c=some changes in the future. Unfortunately, for the Blazers, that is little consolation now.
If any team signs Darius Miles, it will be for one of these three reasons:
1) to activate portand’s luxury tax, earning them roughly 270K
2) to take a long position on a player still recovering from injury
3) to torpedo portland’s free agent opportunities for the next two years
For #1, the team would have to sign Darius to a 10 day contract. After tomorrow, they will have to sign him for the rest of the season and the move would end up costing them more than they would get back from Paul Allen.
For #2, If any team signs and keeps Darius for the remainder of this and next season, then I don’t think there is any reasonable legal argument Portland can make.
For #3, if a team signs Darius and plays him sporadically for the remainder of the season, then cut him in training camp next year – portland could argue that the signing was made with ill will.
The homers are braying at maximum volume over this one.
The Darius situation has been a fiasco for well over a year now, when the idea of sneaking out on his bad contract was first hatched. It’s a big money gambit by a big money sports franchise, rooted in greed and bad karma with Miles and his career the collateral damage… Witness the way Blazers Incorporated treated Miles and his injury vs. the way they treated the parallel injury of Golden Greg Oden.
Now it’s clear than the Machiavellian maneuverings hatched at 1 Center Court — to stick the contract with the insurance company and skate on the luxury tax and cap hits with a single blow — have failed… And we’re treated to the spectacle of a hissyfit by the oily Exxon boys, leaving no doubt about what the motivations of this crew have been all along.
Love your Blazers players, fans, but the corporation behind them has acted very poorly in this matter — at best.