Will Miles play tonight? (Merged)

Yeah, well anyhow, it's something other than "Player X Sucks!!". Thanks for the civil debate, and now I am more up to speed on the NLRB due to some Googling.

 

Yes it is. Jonathan Bender can play. Todd McCulloch could play. Both retired for their long-term health and both were given their salaries.

We don't know. We do know that he cannot be insured.

There comes a point where a regular injury becomes critical. Whether or not Darius risks his own demise is not an issue. The league has decided that the risk of a knee replacement is enough.

I disagree. I believe it to be illustrative.

 

Happy place doesn't have much to do with absolving the franchise. I'm glad that losing the cap exemption is due to Miles being able to play basketball, not due to a scam.

If the team thought they were about to be scammed and tried to pick up Miles, that doesn't seem unethical to me. If they knew he could play and were trying to prevent it, that doesn't seem ethical. I don't know their motivation. They could be unethical people, but it wouldn't affect me much, just as Damon Stoudamire being caught with pot or Ruben Patterson being an accused nanny molester. I follow the NBA for entertainment, not to discover role models or people I'd like to be friends with. It would bug me for the team I follow to lose a competitive edge (cap space) unjustly, but it seems to be just. Thus, happy place.

 

Yes, but this isn't life-threatening. If Miles is fine with endangering his knee and is worth a roster spot, then it's not career-ending. As I mentioned in another post, the only things I consider career-ending are either risk of death to keep playing or an injury that reduces the player to being unable to play at an NBA level. Neither seems to be true of Miles.

 

Miles is a dead issue until if/when the Blazers take action against either Memphis or the league, but I just saw the anchor on SportsCenter say that if Miles plays tonight, that Darius would be paid the $18 million due to him on his contract.

Um, Darius is already being paid the money. It's ignorance like this from the media that drives me nuts.

 

Refer to post #182. And your definition is different than the Blazers', the NBA's and the NBALP's definition, so I don't quite know what to say.

 

The definition in the CBA (and thus the one agreed to by the NBA and NBAPL) is a condition that prevents the player from playing in at least 10 games in a single season. Mine is a little more stringent, as one can play 10 more games with a life-threatening condition.

 

And that's pretty much all we've seen for the last few weeks. People either:

A) Think Darius isn't getting paid his money

or

B) We're going to sue anyone who signed Miles for any reason.

Clearly these people either didn't read the email we sent out, or didn't understand it. Either way, the common opinion of the team from that email is that we're assholes. Nothing we can do about that now. It's over. I'm ready for this thing to end, and quite frankly I think it's a dead issue. He's going to play, the money is going to go back on the cap, and that's that.

 

That's the net effect of the CBA provisions regarding longterm injuries, but the fact is that there is no definition of a career-ending injury in the CBA. Article 7(h)2 simply states:

No guidance is provided anywhere in the CBA, at least as far as I can find, as to what criteria the league-appointed doctor is to use in making this determination. The rub, for the Blazers at least, comes from the fact that subsection 7(h)4 says:

[QUOTE4) Notwithstanding Section 4(h)(1) and (2) above, if after a player’s Salary is excluded from Team Salary in accordance with this Section 4(h), the player plays in ten (10) NBA games in any Season, the excluded Salary for the Salary Cap Year covering such Season and each subsequent Salary Cap Year shall thereupon be included in Team Salary[/QUOTE]

In other words, the CBA doesn't require any countervaling medical opinion saying that the determination of the physician was incorrect or that circumstances have changed; just show up and play a minute or two in 10 games and your former team gets screwed by not only having to continue to pay for your original salary, but has to count it against the cap.

Massively stupid and open to abuse, IMHO.

 

That's only part of the definition. The other part states that a player receives his full salary without having to play if he is deemed to have a career ending injury. The conditions for such an injury is the analysis of a team of physicians approved by both the NBA and the NBALP. It's not just the Blazers who don't think he should play, it's the league and the player's union. However, he has the right to harm himself, so there's little the Blazers, the NBA or the player's union can do to stop him.

 

This is where you and I disagree. I don't think we should waive the white flag; I think we should go on the PR offensive.

Put out Larry Miller, Kevin Pritchard and Tom Penn to discuss EXACTLY what the situation is.

--That Darius is getting his money.

--That he's earned it.

--That the severity of the knee injury scared everyone in the organization.

--That, regardless of his misdeeds, at the time of the injury, he was far and away our best SF and that we were building the team with him as a major cog.

--That we rewarded him with a contract to make him a long-term member of the team and he was playing his best ball ever when he was injured.

--That we worked for two years to get him back on the court.

--That we couldn't in good conscience force him to play on those knee joints, so getting the career ending injury exception was best for both parties--it enabled us to move forward, got Darius paid and saved him from future joint replacement surgery.

--That the NBA and the Player's Union agreed with our diagnosis.

--That we are not trying to stop him from playing or earning a living. We are trying to stop him from being a pawn and being used by other franchises. We are trying to stop him from being signed ONLY to harm our future cap flexibility. If one of those franchises sincerely wanted to sign Darius to an NBA-subsidized veteran minimum guaranteed contract, we'd be thrilled for him. Yet neither Boston nor Memphis think enough of him.

--That the rule that is being applied was never meant for this situation. It was meant for teams who tried to sign their own player after getting the injury exception, thereby circumventing the cap.

--That this rule is being abused by Memphis and Boston. That Boston has personal reasons to mess with us (going back to the Telfair/Ratliff for #7/Dickau deal) and Memphis wants to knock us out as competition for cap space this summer.

--That sports journalists are doing a terrible job explaining the issues at stake. There are a lot of misconceptions and we need to clear them up.

The bottom line is that we're in the right. We should act like it. Just taking the abuse is a recipe for failure.

 

Darius just got inserted into his 10th game this season, in what will be another loss for Memphis.

 

He's running well, dunking, looking pretty good. At this point the damage is done, so good for him. Memphis sucks, so it's all good.

 

Miles is "Top performer" right now in the game according to Yahoo

 

According to the ESPN boxscore, Miles isn't even on the team.

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=290116029

 

All this shit for nothing! He isn't even on the team!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got our cap space back! Hell Yeah!

 

Unfortunately, according to NBA.com, he has 6 pts, 2 rebs, and 1 steal. What is up with ESPN.com?

 

Maybe they cut him in the 1st quarter, then signed him again at halftime!

 

lol

 

He's not even listed on espn's memphis grizzlies players page. Hes not even listed in the box score against Utah (1/16). Looks like hes a ghost again!