Darius Miles-Blazers Fallout: How One Bad Act Can Mar an Entire Organization

It's amazing how one negative reaction can knock an organization back from being a organization that other teams should try to emulate. I'm talking about the Portland Trail Blazers and their reaction to teams trying to acquire Darius Miles. If you don't already know, the Trail Blazers sent an e-mail to every team in the NBA threatening to sue if they signed the aforementioned Miles. 

The upper management of the Blazers has now have taken a hit from the local newspaper The Oregonian to Dan Gilbert the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. What's the justification of sending an e-mail like that?

Well, the reason is simple it's all about money. The Blazers were the team that signed Miles to the contract and they should be the one paying the remaining portion of the contract. 

The Blazers thought they were off the hook because an independent medical examiner that was appointed by the NBA and the NBA players association stated that the injury would qualify as a career-ending injury.

All this happened when the Blazers were trying to waive Miles in April of 2008 and general manager Kevin Pritchard is quoted as stating 

"Given the serious nature of his knee injury, we agree with the doctor's conclusion that Darius has sustained a career-ending injury. This allows Darius and the Trail Blazers to move forward and achieve closure to this matter. To his credit, Darius worked hard to come back, but his body just didn't allow it to happen." 

The funny thing is that the medical examiner stated that it would qualify as a career-ending injury, but never stated that it was a career ending injury. Darius Miles has worked his way back to the point where he can play again and he deserves every opportunity to prove that he can still play in the league. 

The surgery that Miles had on his knee was the microfracture surgery which caused him to miss the the last two seasons, which is rather interesting considering the fact that there are players in the league playing that had the same surgery, including Kenyon Martin (on both knees), Jason Kidd, Amare Stoudemire, Greg Oden, Zach Randolph, John Stockton, Antonio McDyess, Brian Grant, and Chris Webber (on one knees).

All of those players had been able to come back some have come back to play at a high level, others returned as more of a role player, and only two actually just decided to retire after having the surgery Jamal Mashburn and Terrell Brandon.

The Blazers are just trying to get out paying the nine million dollars owed this year to Mile and next year the Blazers would owe Miles an additional nine million dollars if he's able to play 10 games this year. So far he's played in eight and even with the threat of a lawsuit from the Blazers the Grizzlies went ahead and signed him again.

Was it right for the Blazers to do that? Absolutely not. After the upper management of the Blazers were able to turn the team around and bring in more community oriented players like Brandon Roy, Greg Oden, and LaMarcus Aldridge, you would think the organization would have learned from their past mistakes.

Instead of threatening a lawsuit against a team for signing Darius Miles, the Blazers could have instead talked to Miles's agent to see about a buyout of that contract. It's a tough situation to be in for the Blazers because if the salary is there for the next two years it hinders their pursuit of free agents because of the salary cap.

Even with that there was no excuse for the Blazers to do what they did. They owe Miles, the NBA, and the Blazers fans a apology for their actions trying to scare teams from now signing Miles.

Luckily though the Grizzlies didn't buy the threat and signed Miles to another 10-day contract. The Blazers need to get used to the fact that Miles is more than likely going to play more than the 10 games and they will be owing Miles money.

The thing is, this mess that the Blazers have created could have all been avoided though. The Blazers could have worked out something with Miles so that the money owed to Miles wouldn't be as large of a sum, but since they didn't do that it makes you want Miles to play and get the nine million over the next two seasons and after the Blazers threats there's no way that Miles or his agent will want to do any kind of negotiating with the Blazers.