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I would guess that this warning is less about suing and more about trying to make these GM's feel like pieces of if they do this. It's a club and the GM's wouldn't want to be put in this situation. I'm guessing nobody go's after miles after this.
Portland is a team. I'm sure Pop saw this memo and put it in his toilet paper stack.
Now go sign Miles, sit back with a nice bottle of vino and laugh in Portland's face.
I would guess that this warning is less about suing and more about trying to make these GM's feel like pieces of if they do this. It's a club and the GM's wouldn't want to be put in this situation. I'm guessing nobody go's after miles after this.
I don't think any GM would feel bad for screwing the Blazers over after the way they used Paul Allen's deep pockets to try to overpay guys they didn't need in an effort to keep them away from the compe ion.
Nuggets should sign him and just say it was to help while Melo was injured
Beyond the ludicrous legal threats and the notion that somebody should sign Miles just to the Blazers; in terms of future deals- talk about burning your bridges in general. These are all gm's and owners that Portland's going to need to make deals/have relationships with and rely upon in the future, deals entirely unrelated to Miles, and they decide to declare preemptive ing warfare on every single one of these GM's/owners? One of the all-time dumbest NBA decisions ever. the Blazers.
I'm speachless.
the appropriate reaction would be that each of the 29 teams sues the Blazers for trying to trespass and limit their business.
and the NBA should punish the Blazers, taking away a 1st rounder from them is a good idea (since they don't care for money like other teams would).
just think about it, it might happen that all agree that this memo was an inappropriate action, but Miles might still go unsigned and the Blazers get their will. what kind of a message would that be?
next they warn other teams to give one of their restricted FAs an offer sheet, because this also might hurt their cap?
or they warn the other teams to pick a certain player in the draft, because matching would hurt their plans?
let them feel that this kind of arrogance backfires. and teams should blow them out of the arena whenever possible. kick them out of the PO spots.
Their arrogance is astounding but don't you get the feeling that it might just work for them? The NBA has always been silent regarding this issue and the fact that they still are, after this, leads me to think that the best solution to them would be if we could suddently forget that it has ever existed and that Miles just retires.
It's been suddenly blown out of proportion now and whatever happens next will be judged very thoroughly - would some team be willing to bare with all the concequences and trouble for a guy whose value is quite low actually? Or what will happen if nobody signs him? Will there be an investigation by the NBA? Probably not because their interest is clear,they want rid of this mess and the less noise the better.
I think the logical conclusion would be that Miles suddenly retires and the NBA playing deaf and blind about it. After all he can always get a job with Microsoft lol
This is pretty unbelievable. Pritchard has a lot of nerve coming out with something like this. I would be shocked if there is not some sort of backlash from both his collegues and the NBA.
It's not like this is first time an NBA player has been signed and didn't work out for one reason or another and the team was stuck with the bill. Pritchard needs to stop being a crybaby and just man up and accept whatever his fate may be.
For $250,000 in luxury tax payments for the cost of a 10-day contract? Clearly yes, some team under the luxury-tax threshold will sign and play him and have the Blazers pay them to bend Portland over the table. It's good business; free money while also weakening a compe or. If it is not done, then there is undoubtably collusion within the league to cir vent salary cap rules. There is no good reason owners would turn down $250,000 for nothing while sticking it to someone who thinks he can buy a le just because he's a billionaire many times over.
Oh I totally agree with you - it would be good business and Portland deserve it for the way they've acted, but it still is a bit of a dirty job and we'll just have to wait and see if there'll be a team to go forward and do it or they'd all be thinking that somebody else is going to do it for them. Besides unless the NBA responds and at least slap Portland's hands for this memo then who knows what could happen, because as Bruno said yesterday there are some loopholes in the rules regarding this issue and it's effectively the first time something like that happens.
If I were a GM of an NBA team ( thinking Miles couldn't help the team as a player ) I would prefer to wait and see what happens and hope for somebody else to sign him.
any team signing Miles will have to be prepared to spend a million defending themselves in court. Even the innocent lose.
No comments form the resident Blazers Fan?
He's feeling a bit sheepish about now.
I also think that nobody will sign this Miles guy.
However, targeting every single NBA GM is not a very smart move and this sets a very unpleasant precedent for the NBA.
Hence, the following will happen.
1) Portland will have hard times making deals with just about anybody, from now on. Portland is radioactive material.
2) On the commissioner side, we know how Stern deals with these matters: he will send his Joey Crawfords in key games. I wouldn't be surprised if Portland will have hard times making the playoffs, and in case, it will not proceed much further than the first round.
Good luck!
So the rest of the NBA should be scared of being beat by the Blazers lawyers and not the team. hahahahahahaha
classless from the Blazers... Karma is a ...
that's lame, portland
I agree. Its an idle threat....No legal teeth.What a joke.
How could they ever prove that a team signed him just to screw Portland? If the team signs him and uses him, then oh well.
I was just thinking about another aspect of this story:
a part of Miles salary was covered by insurance. reportedly the Blazers will have to also pay money back, when Miles loses his injury retirement status.
so this try to force other teams to not sign Miles might cost the insurance company millions of $. if I was them I sue the Blazers for that money immediately. if in fact no team signs Miles, they have all reasons to claim that this happened because of the warning and thread of the Blazers. they might even argue that this comes close to an insurance fraud by the Blazers.
As would the Blazers. And they have less of a case than any defense that went against them.
Since when could any team tell any other team what players they can or cannot sign?
For that matter, since when did any team tell a player it had released that he can't play elsewhere?
It's like the Brent Barry thing. Everybody and their Mom could know what a team's intentions are when they sign Miles...but unless someone outright comes and says it to the media, the Blazer's case holds no water.
Of course Portland doesn't want to pay the price for making such a bad ing deal and then watching it hit the fan, but it's the bed they've got to sleep in.
the really interesting part is how he was deemed unable to play ever again but yet Miles has been able to pass two (boston and memphis) examinations and deemed fit to play?
Now I really want San Antonio to sign him. I was a huge fan of his when he was on the Clippers.
In the medical field, HIPPA issues are huge. Every office has paper shredders specifically to discard paperwork regarding patients. I wasn't aware that teams were now being more cautious on this front. Regardless, Miles could be the one to press the issue if he wanted to.
The funny thing is, he might just want to play and actually make a comeback. I'm not sure if 'revenge' against PDX is really his motivation. He and his lawyers have been silent throughout the whole process, as far as I can tell.
Stern would have to intervene, I would think, before he let the Blazers owner sue anyone for signing Miles. But being a lawyer and knowing the law isn't the same thing as being respectful of the law so we'll see how Stern reacts, if at all.
I thought about that same thing. Pritchard seems to be pushing the medical argument but if Miles passed a physical with two teams then it's going to be pretty hard to sell.
He most certianly could. I have worked in health care for 10 years and have seen several employees and multiple facilities get fired for disclosing patient information. Having information about his injuries disclosed without his permission could land the Blazers in a lot of hot water if no one else takes a chance on Miles. Like you said though...it will really depend if Miles wants to press the issue.
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