Will Miles play tonight? (Merged)

Miles is good enough to play. This proved it. He may not be near normal, or ever be, but he isn't fucked up enough to be forced into medical retirement.

Good luck D-Miles.

 

Are you a lawyer? I venture to say not. I am, and to me, they are clearly in the right, legally.

So, just how is it they are "soooooooo on the wrong side legally"? (a sentence, btw, which proves you know little about the law.)

 

This is spot on. It's a stupid combination. Either (a) trust the doctors entirely and dump the ten game rule (which is just an open invitation to bad blood. I mean everyone everyone predicted the minute this decision was made that some team could purposely screw the Blazers. This is the point at which the League should have reconsidered their rules) or (b) just get rid of the medical rule and have teams have to take the cap hit no matter what.

You could beef up option (a) by having a panel of doctors make the decision on whether or not an injury is career-ending. But anyway, I think it's quite legitimate for the following combination of things to happen:

1. A player gets declared to have a career-ending injury and the team gets cap relief.
2. That player is signed by and plays for another team (without any effect on the previous decision or cap relief for the original team).

Just because a player and another team both want him to play doesn't mean he doesn't have an injury that his original team (on the advice of doctors) could legitimately decide is one that means he medically shouldn't play for them.

This way, everybody wins. The original team gets cap space and can avoid risking a player's health on their watch, while at the same time the player has the all-American freedom to idiotically risk his future health to grasp at the shreds of a career. And his new team has the right to exploit that willingness to take that risk. What could be more American?

 

But what about the Blazers trying to claim Miles off waivers? Doesn't look like you can make the same mental maneuver to take you to a happy place on that one.

 

I like the idea in principle, but I could see this being abused. If a player isn't happy on a team and the team isn't happy about the players contract . . . find a doctor to declare that he has a career ending injury. Team gets him of the salary cap, player gets to pick a team he want to play for whlie collecting insurnce money from old team. Everyone wins (but the insurance co)

But is this a way to circumvent the salary cap?

 

It's only cheating if the player isn't seriously injured. So have a panel of doctors (hand-picked by the league, including the insurance company's own doctor) make the decision. If they can't decide, have an actual judge decide on the basis of their testimony.

 

The issue isn't whether or not Miles can play. The issue is whether or not he risks long term damage by playing on his knees.

Cat Mobley can play. Of course, he also risks dropping dead of heart failure, so it behooves him not to do so.

 

If you have a panel of doctors unable to agree, I don't think it's best to then let a judge (with a non-medical background) decide.

Bottom line is doctors frequently disagree about a diagnosis (like in the Miles case). If the NBA creates a rule that makes it advantageous for all parties to have someone be declared medically retired . . . and then that player can come back and play with no consequences to anybody. I think it will be a rule that will try to be abused (we are talking cap flexibility . . . big deal for all teams)

 

I think that's the best move they have made in this entire process and could be the one that lets them win a legal case. Memphis deemed Darius Miles as disposable, no other team wanted him, and by rule, the Blazers should have been able to make a claim. Darius gets an NBA contract guaranteed, no other teams are hurt by this since no other team claimed him, and life goes on as Darius pouts.

Now, if your position is that the only reason Memphis waived him was to bring him back w/out guaranteeing him, the "intent" email comes into play and would be a part of any case brought against either the Grizz or the league.

Seems cut and dry to me. Business as usual...

 

Which doctors disagreed with the Miles diagnosis?

 

The other big issue is whether or not Portland had a right to claim him off of waivers after no other team wanted to guarantee him. I say it's at least pursuing in the legal arena by Paul Allen.

 

Boston and Memphis both had Miles medically examined and they both "independently" cleared miles to play.

 

Yeah, but there are forum mores. And one of them is not to troll, as it says more about you than it does about others. However, I applaud your willingness to demonstrate what an ass you are for the entire forum to see.

 

Miles has always been cleared to play. A bone-on-bone injury doesn't manifest itself by not being able to play. It manifests itself by the development of Osgood-Schlatters, fluid filling the joints, arthritis and finally knee replacement.

 

Exactly . . . Miles has always been cleared to play. All that has been established is if Miles retires, then the Blazers qualify for the medical retirement clause/rule that allows the Blazers to remove Miles salry off their cap.

But Miles did not retire, he decided to play (righ or wrong), so the medical retirement rule doesn't apply.

Basically Blazers cut Miles, hoped to utilize the medical retirement rule becuase of Darius' injury, but becuase Darius played, they don't get to utilize the medical retirement rule. Sucks . . . but it is what it is.

 

Which is where the waiver denial will come back and bite the NBA in the ass.

If Miles has healed or is better, Portland according to the CBA is not denied a right to claim him or even try to sign him independently.

 

Spaghetti Monster bless you Go Time!

So pretty much you are saying it sucks, but POR just has to bite the bullet and accept the situation that Miles will be put on the books, rightly so...right?

 

I don't fault Darius for wanting to play if he is physically capable of it. It's his body and he's willing to risk knee replacement surgery in order to play a few more seasons, so be it. The Blazers knew the financial risk going into the retirement exemption process and Larry Miller has said the team is fine with the hit as long as the team signing Darius is legitimately going about using him for the purpose of winning games.

The problem, as we all know by now, is that teams can sign him more for the purpose of damaging the Blazers than for what Darius can contribute on the court over the rest of the season. Perhaps the Grizzlies are legitimately planning on playing him on a series of 10-day contracts until they can find out whether his knee will in fact hold up. On the other hand, they may really like the idea of putting the Blazers in a bind and have no interest in Darius after he plays one more game.

My question is, if the Blazers were told by the league that they wouldn't be allowed to claim Darius off of waivers because it would circumvent the intent of the CBA, then why isn't it also circumvention of the medical retirement section of the CBA for a team to use this 10 game cameo appearance nonsense as a means of screwing another team?

 

Yep, rightly so.

I think the rule should be reviewed and maybe revised because we now see it could lead to situations where teams sign players not to improve thier team but to mess with another team (the CBA is up for negotiations in two years).

But there hasn't been a lot of abuse or controversy with this rule to date and I don't think the Blazers created a lot of sympathy around the league. So maybe the league waits to see if another similar situation occurs before decideing to mess with it (got to pick your battles)

But yes , the Blazers were hoping they would benefit from the rule, but they didn't . . . I still think the Blazers would handle it the same way if they had to do it over (except for the eamil part )