FanHouse DariusMiles

During the NBA's slow days of summer, Mirror Mirror examines the connections between hoops stars and similarly-named figures of historical note.

On the surface, little binds Miles Davis, a phenomenal musician who made an indeliable mark on American music by revolutionizing (and some would say perfecting) jazz, and Darius Miles, the eternal character in th question "I wonder what ______ is doing?"

In this episode of Mirror Mirror, we examine what makes these men these men.

As Tim Povtak wrote earlier, Magic star Rashard Lewis has been suspended for 10 games by the NBA for testing positive for dehydroepiandrosterone, a substance on the NBA's banned peformance enhancing drug list.

But what is dehydroepiandrosterone? Is it anything like the steroids baseball and football players have been disciplined for?

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Blame the Clippers more than you credit Alvin Gentry, but whatever dude. Amar'e Stoudemire went off for 42 points on 20 FGAs, and added 11 rebounds in a second straight massive win for the Suns over L.A.'s stepchild.

Amar'e dominated the ball, taking eight more FGAs and seven more FTAs than any other Sun. That's smart for Phoenix: Stoudemire and Steve Nash (21 points, 12 assists) should be controlling the offense. And that's exactly what happened Wednesday. Cheers.

In case you missed it, Memphis gave Darius Miles some playing time on Friday, cementing his un-retirement and sticking his $9 million per year salary back on Portland's books for this year and next. The story -- so fierce a week ago -- went out quietly as Miles showed there's no controversy in his presence on the floor: dude can still play.

But Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski, who has been a central actor in revealing some facts of the matter and exposing Portland's unsuccessful attempts to make Miles radioactive, gets off one final flurry of fury at Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard.

If Portland's threat to sue in the Darius Miles saga had any teeth left, Miles himself knocked them out last night. Miles played just under 14 minutes against Cleveland, the league's No. 1 defense. He scored 13 points.

Another day, another cannonball lobbed at Portland. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! supplies it again, revealing that before threatening to sue any team that signed Darius Miles the Blazers attempted to claim the forward off waivers.

Had Portland been successful, the team would have been on the hook for the rest of his league minimum salary for 2008-09. But the benefit would come in stashing Miles on the bench and keeping him from Games 9 and 10, games that would (err, will) halve Portland's summer cap space.

So you're the General Manager of a small-market team. You've been pretty bad for several years, and even when you were a one-and-done playoff team, the fans weren't exactly clamoring for tickets. In a town where the college basketball team rules all, you have to get a little inventive to make a buck, especially in a recession.

The Memphis Grizzlies are using a veteran with injury issues on the cheap, particularly in a way that is bad for other teams. Let me explain.

On Friday night, news slipped that Memphis signed Darius Miles to a 10-day contract which goes into effect today, giving the Grizzlies three opportunities to get Miles some run. This would not be notable if the Blazers hadn't threatened to sue any team that signed Miles for the purpose of damaging Portland's salary cap standing.

Clearly, no team really had much to fear once the NBA put out its statement Friday morning telling the league any franchise was free to sign Miles.

The Blazers stuck to their guns before Memphis signed D, even in the face of a grievance from the players union.

On Thursday we judged whether or not the potential Darius Miles un-retirement would really hurt the Blazers. For anyone still arguing it doesn't really matter ... well, they might want to explain that to the Blazers front office.

Ian Thomsen of Sports Illustrated has news of a peculiar (read: %@#$ing crazy) threat Portland president Larry Miller sent around to NBA executives this week. Here's the short letter, according to Thomsen:

The Portland Trail Blazers are aware that certain teams may be contemplating signing Darius Miles to a contract for the purpose of adversely impacting the Portland Trail Blazers Salary Cap and tax positions. Such conduct from a team would violate its fiduciary duty as an NBA joint venturer. In addition, persons or entities involved in such conduct may be individually liable to the Portland Trail Blazers for tortuously interfering with the Portland Trail Blazers' contract rights and perspective economic opportunities.

Please be aware that if a team engages in such conduct, the Portland Trail Blazers will take all necessary steps to safeguard its rights, including, without limitation, litigation.

The Blazers have already gone a few steps too far on the Miles situation, badmouthing him around the league and leaking details of his 10-game suspension to keep prospective teams from even giving him a chance. Local fans, however, remain sympathetic to the Blazers cause in this matter. But this is a mile past the line, right?

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! dropped a bombshell on the whole Darius Miles escapade: those six preseason games Miles played in for Boston counted toward the 10 which would "un-retire" Darius and stick his $9 million back on Portland's 2009-10 salary cap figure. The understanding, furthered by Woj, is that the cap addition would cripple Portland's summmertime spending spree. (Woj's assessment: "Darius Miles is on the brink of blowing up the Blazers' salary-cap space.")

But is that really the case? Are the Blazers screwed if Miles plays two more games this season? Dave Deckard of Blazers Edge doesn't think so. Let's look into the situation in detail.