Adrian Wojnarowski, over at Yahoo! Sports filed a story about Darius Miles this morning. Its a good read and it makes me look at Portland's management a little less glowingly

Link to story

Before the Portland Trail Blazers resorted to a threatening email to frighten rival NBA teams from signing Darius Miles, team officials late last week made a brazen bid to claim the forward off waivers only to be stopped by the league, multiple front-office sources told Yahoo! Sports.

So determined to salvage the salary cap space that would come with the foiling of Miles’ comeback from a devastating knee injury, Portland president Larry Miller and general manager Kevin Pritchard apparently were willing to stash Miles on the sideline and keep him away from other NBA teams.

In denying the Blazers’ move to control Miles, NBA front-office sources say that league executives in New York denied the waiver claim because they believed the Blazers were merely trying to circumvent league salary cap rules.

Once the NBA rejected Portland’s waiver claim, Miller sent an unprecedented threat of legal action for any team that signed Miles as a free agent. Several league executives were aware of the bid on Miles and reacted angrily over what they considered hypocrisy.

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Portland wanted to prevent Miles from playing an additional two games that would’ve nullified the benefit of salary cap relief, the Blazers’ main retirement-injury benefit. Miles’ return to the Blazers’ cap could cost Portland owner Paul Allen as much as $8 million in luxury tax payments to non-tax paying teams.

Once Miles plays 10 games this season, the $18 million left on his contract returns to the Blazers’ books over the next two years and severely punctures Portland’s opportunity to sign a star player to complement its good young core of players.

I was a little bit shocked to read this. The Portland Trailblazers all season long have been the hot story of the NBA. Greg Oden is playing, Brandon Roy is a fearless leader, LaMarcus Aldridge is some kind of anti-social personality done good, it goes on and on. This is team of the future! Everyone can like these loveable kids!

On top of that, Kevin Pritchard has been heralded as the genius behind it all, Larry Miller the smart guy pulling the strings. This was a smart team, a good team, a team that in a weird way, everyone in the NBA was rooting for because it was such a great turnaround story.

Then they had to go and ruin it. Larry Miller and Kevin Pritchard were willing first to CLAIM Darius Miles off of waivers, then stash him on the sidelines to protect their cap number (the way it would've worked out, they would only need to pay Miles the rest of a minimum contract as long as he didn't play another game this season). That's freakin kidnapping. The NBA smartly denied the claim, but then in a blatantly bully scare tactic, the Blazers sent an email to all 29 teams telling them to stay away, which the players association and league swiftly disregarded.

Now, Miles has been resigned by the Grizzlies, and he'll get his shot to be Kevin Pritchard's favorite 18 million dollar mistake this Friday (probably). I hope he does, but more than that, I hope we as fans can focus on the real redemption story going on here. We've lost track of a real, true NBA redemption story in Darius Miles. This guy, one of the original Jailblazers, has finally returned from what was thought of and diagnosed as career ending injury. He hasn't played more than half of an NBA season since 2004-2005, and only appeared in 40 games in 2005-2006.

Miles, once a rising star in the NBA, was thought dead on the bench, and then the dianoses followed. However, Darius persevered,  and now he's back in the league (abiet a 3rd string SF), and playing. That alone is a monsterous accomplishment. So who gives a flying crap about Portland's salary cap? I say we root for Darius for the sake of a comeback, and stuff the money. Anything else would sell a great story short.