From the news services of ESPN...Portland Trail Blazers forward Darius Miles, who has not practiced or played with the team this season, is not offering details about the right knee injury that has kept him sidelined.
But Miles told The Columbian of Vancouver, Wash., in a story in Thursday's editions that he has seen four specialists and that the team has told him not to do any workouts that put stress on the knee.
"It's serious," Miles told the newspaper. "If it wasn't that serious, I think I'd probably be playing right now."
"I don't know," he said when asked if the injury could leave him out for the season. "Hopefully I can play."
The exact nature of the injury has not been revealed, but Miles said it is not related to surgery he had last year to repair cartilage damage in the knee.
"It's something completely different. It's real frustrating," Miles told the newspaper.
Miles said he is no longer experiencing pain or swelling, but both he and Blazers coach Nate McMillan said Miles can't play right now.
"I think there's enough there that we can't bring him or suit him up," McMillan told the newspaper.
From the Oregonian...The Trail Blazers play Phoenix tonight on the road, and maybe you've been keeping track but it goes down as one of the most significant games of the season for the franchise.
Not because they could win, or lose.
Not because we'll be interested to see if Sergio Rodriguez gets a start.
Not because Steve Nash is good.
But because it's game No. 41, which goes down as an important landmark in the journey of Darius Miles. As you know, he's had microfracture surgery, and an insurance policy will pay 80 percent of his salary after missing 41 consecutive games.
This is game No. 41 for Miles. And so maybe the franchise feels a little liberated after this one, especially because I don't see Miles making it back.
Portland is now responsible for only 20 percent of his remaining salary, which is a big-time savings for an operation that has been busy gutting entry-level positions on its support staff. That has to feel huge for the front office, but it's not going to affect the day-to-day operations of the basketball side as Miles' salary still counts against the salary cap.
Count me as one of those who doesn't think Miles has what it takes in the center of his chest to make it back to play again. I just don't think he's that interested in basketball. Zach Randolph had the same surgery and came back strong. While I've seen Miles a couple of times, riding a stationary bicycyle, he's overweight and out of shape right now. I don't believe he has the pure will to succeed or pride that Randolph possesses.
I'd love to be wrong on this one. Love for Miles, who makes a guaranteed $7.75 million this season and $8.25 million, $9 million and $9 million over the next three seasons, to come back with a new attitude, focused, driven, happy --- you know, Rocky Balboa, Eye of the Tiger, all that...but psychologists tell us that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and I can't say we have proof of life when it comes to Miles career.
From the Oregonian...It's been nine months since the microfracture surgery on Darius Miles. To re-cap... Poor attitude. Poor work ethic. And a career stat sheet that amounts to a damned shame when you consider his talent.
Still...
The log at the practice facility shows Miles has checked in there every day for the last three months. That's encouraging. He'd ballooned up 40 pounds over his playing weight but is now slimming, a source says. Apparently the trips to Cold Stone Creamery have diminished, and this is a good thing if the franchise hopes to wring anything at all (a few minutes, a warm body, a possible trade?) out of Miles and the remaining three years and $26.25 million it owes him.
Miles doesn't fit the new culture. His best friend on the team, Z-Bo, is gone to NYC. He doesn't fit the style that Nate McMillan wants to play. He barely fits in his old jeans anymore. Which is why this goes down as a salvage project all the way. Even if what you salvage is your sanity.
The next six weeks will be huge for Miles --- not just in whether or not he plays in 2007-08 --- but if he ever wants play in the NBA again. I think he's played his last game, but I'd love to be wrong. Man, would I ever.
The microfracture surgery is a tough recovery, and guys with tremendous work ethic barely make it back. Amare Stoudemire went 20 and 9 in 19 minutes in his premature comeback attempt six months after microfracture surgery. At six months, doctors wouldn't clear Miles to run.
From the AP... http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5297777
On the same day as Game 7 of the NBA finals, Darius Miles is running the floor alongside several players who have never been in the NBA and perhaps never will.
It was hardly the place for a former No. 3 overall pick in the draft. But following what was once called a "career-ending" knee injury and off-court problems, Miles is determined to overcome the rustiness and his balky knee to play in the NBA again.
If it requires being a grunt in the Charlotte Bobcats' obscure free-agent camp the same week the league crowns a champion, so be it.
"For a guy like him to come in this kind of setting speaks well for him," Bobcats coach Larry Brown said. "It shows you how much he wants to play."
For Miles it's simple. He's worked on his jump shot, still feels he has the quickness that made him so difficult to guard, and he has incentive to overcome the obstacles that have left him out of the league for more than a year.
"My son is two years old and he's never got a chance to see me play. I want him to get the experience of being in an arena," Miles said. "I'm 28 years old. I've got at least five or six good years left in me if my body holds up. I just want to be part of something, part of something that means something."
That seemed certain in 2001 when Miles became the first player to come straight from high school to make the NBA's All-Rookie team. Known for his tremendous athletic ability, the 6-foot-9 Miles missed only one game in his first two seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Soon, though, trouble found Miles. After two years in Cleveland, Miles was traded to Portland. He averaged double figures in points in each of his three seasons there, but also clashed with Trail Blazers coach Maurice Cheeks. He then injured his right knee late in the 2005-06 season, when he averaged a career-best 14 points in 40 games.
Miles spent the next two years out of the league after undergoing risky microfracture surgery in November 2006. Soon an independent doctor determined Miles had suffered a career-ending injury, allowing the Blazers to shed $18 million off their salary cap.
Miles, though, wouldn't retire, and began working on reinventing his game.
"I had a God-gift [talent] and never thought it would be taken away from me," Miles said. "I probably would have never worked on my jump shot. Like never, because I can always get to the basket and jump higher than everybody. But it got to the point where you can't do that anymore so you've got to work on your jumper."
Portland's salary cap relief plan was foiled when Miles and his newfound shooting stroke signed with Memphis early in the 2008-09 season. He had to sit out 10 games for violating the league's substance abuse policy, but finished the season with the Grizzlies.
But Miles ran into further legal trouble soon after the season ended when he was arrested in Illinois on a marijuana possession charge. The Grizzlies decided not to re-sign him.
Miles hasn't resurfaced in the NBA since, yet he's confident after undergoing another knee surgery last year.
"My body is back," he said after a workout at Time Warner Cable Arena this week. "It's been three, four years since I've been healthy. This time I took off I really just kind of worked on getting my body healed."
Charlotte's Brown never forgot about Miles, whose long, athletic frame feeds Brown's craving of players who can play multiple positions.
"It's been 10 years I've been trying to get him in a gym," Brown said. "Finally did it."
Added Miles: "Coach Brown, he's always been supportive of me. It's funny because every time I used to play against him he was always, 'I want to coach you.' I thought it would never happen. It's crazy that it's happened this way."
While Brown said Miles is in decent shape, he's still a long way from earning a roster spot. The good news for Miles is that owner Michael Jordan has been watching the workouts this week. Charlotte has roster openings for next season, and Miles could get an invite to training camp by signing a non-guaranteed contract.
"Whatever I've got to do to get on the team or whatever, whatever they need me to do," Miles said. "Like a lot of situations, I was used to being the first or second option. Coming to a situation like this, it's new for me, being in a free agent camp and all this stuff.
"I'm just trying to listen and learn and follow the lead."