Watchin the Bobcats/Thunder game and DMiles is walking around trying to get the Bobcats all pumped for the game. He's in street gear, not playing. What a crazy career this guy has had!
Darius Miles supports his (?) summer league team, while Oden selfishly continues rehabbing. Why must Miles continue to haunt us with what-might-have-been? If we had Miles supporting our summer league team, our future outlook would be amazing.
THAT'S the guy every team wants hanging around their young players. Larry Brown finally jumped the shark.
Amazing the extent that Miles will go to in order to F over the Blazers. I wonder when the Blazers are going to sue the Bobcats. Ed O.
Strange how the same people who ridicule him for being permanently injured are the same group who criticized him for not playing hard and being out for so long. Have you ever considered the possibility that one caused the other?
I've been on the "Darius Miles gets a bum rap" bandwagon for a while. I think he'd turned a corner and found his confidence here in Portland. The half year he was here and healthy he did some amazing things, and the following year he was solid, while playing limited minutes behind Rahim and Randolph. The next year he started out on fire, and I was pretty excited, but then his game deteriorated. Many fans called him lazy and called him out for giving a half hearted effort. I think part of this was because expectations were so high after the start of the season. Then, after shutting it down halfway through the season, he quietly had micro fracture surgery. I don't remember any reports about the severity of the injury at the time. Then, to find out the injury could have been bad enough to be found to be career ending, Miles may not have been a saint, or an all star, and he may have been lazy, but I don't think it's fair to characterize him that way simply because it took him longer to come back than anyone thought.
The guy's injuries were MUCH worse than Oden's. I forgot. Something about being broken in 3 places, while Oden's is in 1 place. And while many message board pundits criticized his teammates for strip clubs and shootings, the same group criticized Miles for acting like a Boy Scout and being at an ice cream parlor. They still bitterly bring that up to this day. (It was proven years ago that the origin of the story was a message board poster originally saying it as a sarcastic joke. It never really happened. But even if it did, you'd expect the law and order crowd to praise such Boy Scout behavior, and not use it to fuel their hatred.)
I don't care if Miles goes to ice cream parlors. I like ice cream. I don't even really care if he goes to strip clubs; I think they're gross but I am a realist, a big percentage of NBA players go there. What soured me on Miles was a game I was at with a seat by the bench. The Blazers had a big lead over the Warriors. They subbed in Miles and he played like crap, hoisted up bad shots with 20 seconds on the clock, did not go back on defense, etc. etc. The big lead shrunk, the Warriors fans who had been sitting on their hands were getting back into the game. Then coach Cheeks pulled Miles and put in someone else. I sat right there and heard Miles loudly curse Cheeks, then slam his ass down at the far end of the bench. Cheeks went over to talk to him, quiet at first, and Mile loudly cussed at him. Cheeks finally said something like "every time I say anything to you you give me a lot of shit". Now, Cheeks was a good man but not a very good head coach, but Miles' behavior was inexcusable. If he was injured and could not play effectively, OK, but then he has to come out of the game. To curse a coach loudly enough for fans to hear is not behavior I admire. Not because I am in jlprk's weird imagination (how he got this I don't know since it's so opposite of me) a law and order right winger, but because I believe in human dignity. Miles behaved like a turd. He lost my liking.
Yep, I have said for years that he's an emotional child. When he comes to a new team, all he cares about is whether he knows any player there. He looks for a friend to lead him. If his critics talk about immature behavior, I agree with them. But no need to extend it to finding everything else he does wrong. Just be specific. As for the other stuff, some other time on the off-topic board. Also, in McMillan's first months here, he had Miles being the co-equal best player with Zach. McMillan knew how to handle him, but then the injuries started.
He's an interesting guy. For years he coasted on his natural talent, not appreciating the gifts he was given, if not outright being contemptuous of those who tried to get him to live up to those gifts. Once we tried to force him out of the league, he has seemed to find a love for this game and an appreciation of being in the NBA he didn't have. If he would have had this attitude when he was drafted by the Clippers, who knows what his career could have been?
Strange how pretty much all of your posts are based on some generic strawman that only you seem to have seen here.
He had a large amount of talent that we only got to see glimpses of. However, he was always in love with the "NBA lifestyle", not actually playing in the NBA. IMHO, that's why he wants back in - he wants the lifestyle. He's not much as a regular citizen, and he doesn't like that.
I agree more with your post than I do with my initial one. Repped. Thanks for adding some perspective that hadn't occured to me.
