The Drubbing

Portland, Portland, Portland. How could you be so callous and stupid?

2009 is going to be a tough year. The economy is in the shitter, and the road to recovery is going to be a looooong one. But we won’t get out of it alive with an “every man for themselves” mentality. We’ve gotta work together. That’s one of the reasons the Blazer’s threat to sue any team that purposefully tries to “adversely impact the Portland Trail Blazers Salary Cap and tax positions” by signing Darius Miles and playing him in two more games this season is so enraging.

Darius Miles just wants to ball out

Portland had been an exemplary franchise over the last few years. Transforming themselves from the Pelican Bay of NBA franchises to a model team with an admirable collection of budding young stars and excellent citizens of the community. Part of the reason why this transformation was possible was by ridding their roster of problem players like Darius Miles. So it was shocking when they took the extra mile to link themselves back to Darius when one would think they would be happy to never be mentioned in the same sentence as Mr. Miles.

What the Blazers did was wrong on so many levels. First to try to tell other owners how to run their teams is just an unwritten rule (who knows, it might even be written). Then there’s how they went about it. They didn’t place phone calls or arrange meeting with other teams. They didn’t ask other owners to consider their options because of the negative financial impact it would have for the Blazers. Instead Portland just assumed that every other NBA team is run by a bunch of jerks that would like nothing else than to stick a huge charge and some luxury tax to the Blazers and make it harder for them to compete. So they wrote a letter basically saying “don’t talk to this player or we’ll sue you.” And then there’s the personal note. Darius Miles is not some house for sale on the corner lot. He’s a human being, who is trying to make a living playing the game he loves, after working very hard to overcome a knee injury that Portland’s doctors said he’d never recover from, and support his family, which presumably includes numerous illegitimate children, Shawn Kemp style (Darius, feel free to let us know if this is off base).

Is that Darius Miles or Beetlejuice

So I’m glad Darius cleared waivers , I’m glad a team took another chance on him, I’m glad he played at least the two more games to stick it to Portland. I’m glad he played well and played a significant role for the Memphis Grizzles in at least those two games. I’m glad the NBA Players Association filed a grievance, and I hope they get some kind of judgment or at least an apology from the Blazers brash brass.

But I am also infuriated that the league decided to take no action against the Blazers. Just because someone did sign Miles in spite of Blazers president Larry Miller’s email doesn’t mean that damage wasn’t done and that action shouldn’t be taken to discourage other teams from doing something similar in the future. This sets a terrible precedent that teams and owners (with the exception of Mark Cuban) will not be held accountable, certainly not to the extent that players have been over the last several years.

Doubtful that this young one belongs to Darius

Since the email that started this all off, Miller has said that their “purpose was not in any way to keep Darius from being able to play.” And I don’t doubt that. But the problem is, that the Blazers purpose was in fact to protect their organization and their money at all costs. Even if it cost a former player the ability to play for another team and support his babies and babies’ mommas. And that is the problem.

So it is with that, that we dub the Portland Trail Blazers as the Haters of the Year for 2009. There’s no way anyone can top this.

Update: The Memphis Grizzlies signed Miles for the rest of the season, so despite the Blazers’ best efforts, Miles will be able to feed his family. Latrell Sprewell is crying somewhere.