I can't speak for anyone else, but to me it says Miles isn't a good player, healthy or not, so I wouldn't want him on the team. Would that answer your question?
Well at least you came out and said it. Bob "I'm not a chemistry major" Whitless would agree with you. I find what you wrote ridiculous, but I'll accept it. I think Webster's better and Batum will be. But if you could deal with him jogging up the court on defense, and cussing out the coach, more power to you. I've heard time heals all wounds, but this just seems ridiculous.
Partially. But I'd have a follow up question. Why isn't he a good player, since he's always been regarded as having a ton of raw talent... Would it have something to do with a certain 'motivation' word?
Lots of players don't pan out to fulfill their pre-draft expectations. That doesn't make them lazy/unmotivated. The vast majority of the time, I'd say it was because the expectations/evaluations were wrong. Miles was tremendously athletic, and people projected those physical tools into elite skills down the road. That sometimes happens...but gifted athletes don't always become great players, whether or not they work hard.
Agreed. I fail to see why it would follow that--merely because I don't think that the guy is a worthless and lazy underachieving asshole--I would want a guy on the current Blazers team. I thought that the extension Nash gave Miles was ridiculous. I thought that the hype over Miles as the "Punisher" was silly. I never thought that he was a particularly good player at any point in his career. With that being said, I don't like that people assume that, since he didn't work out as a Blazer, that he must be a bad guy. Ed O.
He didn't work out with three teams, that's a trend. While I don't think he was a very good player, or a 'winner', or a team first player, his on the court production I don't think was the big problem. It was all the other stuff that came with him, those are the things that turned me off even more. About the only difference I see between Miles and a guy like Outlaw, is character, which includes hard work. Outlaw has great athleticism as well, but not the best basketball IQ. Yet through hard work he's drastically improved his game in many areas since he was a rookie. Look at Miles statistics. His rookie numbers are almost as high as his career average... That shows three things - how highly regarded his talent was coming in as a rookie (since he averaged over 26 min. a game), that the expectations of Miles appeared justified since he was producing well as a rookie, and also that he didn't improve very much from then on. Why did his game plateau at such a young age? Don't underestimate the value of hard work. Guys with far less talent have succeeded, it's not an accident.
The only real difference, IMO, is that Outlaw started with low minutes and increased them, giving the illusion of rising performance, while Miles started with solid minutes from the beginning. Not counting Outlaw's rookie season (when he played 8 games), here's how his PER (which is minutes- and pace-adjusted) looks: 2004-05: 15.4 2005-06: 12.9 2006-07: 15.3 2007-08: 15.7 2008-09: 13.7 Tossing out this year as incomplete and Outlaw figuring out his role, there's not a lot of evidence of him improving much or declining much. He's basically the same as he was the first year that he played in a lot of games. Darius Miles: 2000-01: 14.7 2001-02: 14.4 2002-03: 9.7 2003-04: 16.1 2004-05: 15.5 2005-06: 12.5 Miles and Outlaw have shown a similar amount of stagnation since they started. But you perceive Outlaw as hard-working/motivated and Miles as not being so.
Outlaw's first year was 8 games in garbage time - it really means nothing. His "rookie" year was really his 2nd - so there is a big improvement between his "rookie" year and his next 2 years. His production this year is definitely down - one has to wonder if that's because he is adjusting to a new role instead of being the "man" on the white unit. The big difference between them, of course, is that Outlaw was selected at the end of the 1st round, Miles was the #3 pick - and that Outlaw is compensated like the role-player he is - but Darius was signed to a very big contract as if he was a star. As for how much they both work on their game - it's beyond me to really discuss it - as I have no first-hand information on the subject.
But that's my whole point. Coaches play there best players because they want to win. The fact Miles played a lot his rookie year shows me that he was already able to perform at this level. But his minutes per game never increased substantially the rest of his career. 32.2 being the highest. It's not an "illusion of rising performance" when a player gets more minutes like Outlaw, it means the coach has more faith in them and they're deserving of increased playing time. What planet do you live on? Outlaw was so raw his rookie year he couldn't really get off the bench. Last year he was in discussion for sixth man of the year. There's no comparison. The PER argument is fatally flawed, for reasons I already gave. Players play more when they deserve it, and less when they deserve it. Anyone who actually saw Travis as a rookie and Travis now, knows there is no comparison. Show those PER stats to Nate McMillan and he laughs in your face. And don't simply exclude his rookie year, that's a pretty significant part of this entire discussion - How much has a player improved. Outlaw has vastly improved, Miles only marginally.
It is illusory, because the player's ability hasn't changed, he's just getting more minutes. If you take Kobe Bryant today and reduce his minutes to 20 per game, guess what? His production will fall. Not because his ability changed, but because you can't accumulate as much production when you play less. The reverse is obviously true: if your ability doesn't change, but you get more minutes, your numbers will obviously rise. Numbers rising with minutes is not much of an indication of greater ability. Coach trust is quite different from actual ability. If there was such a massive difference in ability, it would show itself in his per-minute efficiency. Maybe not perfectly, but to the extent of posting somewhat better numbers on a per-minute basis. He played 8 games, which is a pretty meaningless sample. Of course, his rookie season doesn't help your point (I didn't exclude it to help my own point): 2003-04: 16.4 So, he actually "got worse" after his rookie year (of course, an 8 game sample has virtually no level of statistical confidence, which is exactly why I omitted it). I am not really saying Outlaw hasn't improved at all. His defense has improved and his court awareness has improved. But those are things we can't really compare to Miles in this discussion because that would take a very close watching of Miles through his career that we probably don't have. Comparing their production, both have stagnated and there's very little evidence that Outlaw "worked really hard" while Miles didn't.
Dude... I can't believe you're actually arguing that Outlaw hasn't improved... Until now, I actually took you for an intelligent poster, but this makes it hard. If you can't see the relationship between playing time and performance, then I'm not sure why I'm talking to you. I think I'll talk to a stapler instead, it will be much more fulfilling. Try watching some actual games, instead of living in your PER world. I'm done with this thread.
You don't handle disagreement well. What actual games? If you think there are actual games being played with human beings, you're incredibly naive. There are only numbers...simulations are run, and video is created based on the simulations. There are no actual "basketball games." Fancy you not knowing that.
you really think people would turn down a healthy 2003-4 Darius Miles? I find that hard to believe. He'd be the worst perimeter threat of any of the current SFs but the best defender, shotblocker/steals, ballhandler, passer, and finisher. But reality happened and dude's knees repeatedly went under the knife. Now he's done or at best a shadow of himself at 27. Getting taken down by injury doesn't make him lazy or a bad guy. It happened to David Thompson, Andrew Toney, Ralph Sampson, and Sabas, so it can certainly happen to lessor players as well. The Cheeks incident aside, he got along with everyone well enough and I liked what he brought. But then he got injured and so we move on. STOMP
I love it when people say stuff like this... that they think someone is intelligent until they disagree with them. Hilarious. Minstrel should watch some actual games to get intelligent, it appears. Ed O.
Since I have a few opinions, and I'm not doing anything else constructive, I guess I'll share them. I liked Darius when he was here. However, I thought his extension and contract were ridiculous. Very stupid by the Blazers. I thought Darius got a bum rap under Cheeks when he played hurt, was apparantly forced to come back too early, struggled, and ended up severely injured for his trouble. All the while, since his performance suffered, he was vilified in the press and on the 'internetz.' That's the way I saw it, anyway. I don't know if he was a lazy underachiever or not. He's clearly put in a lot of work to try to come back and play basketball, so he certainly doesn't seem to me like a lazy lout today. I don't want the guy to be a cripple. I also don't want him busting our chance for cap space. I simply don't believe he is capable of being a productive NBA player at this stage, no matter how much he wants to be. So I'm not in favor of him risking his health and busting our cap space for no good reason.
