Must read piece on Darius Miles

[angelfan1958]

www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/what-the-hell-happened-to-darius-miles

Darius talks about the early days with the Clippers, where be came from, sterling. He is now doing ok, thank God, but he was in dark times

[nuraman00]

Thanks for posting.

I read the first section (through the jet ski story).

Will read the rest later.

[mistwell]

That was really good. Thanks for posting it. I passed it along to my buddy. We had season tickets to that first Darius Miles season. Loved that season so much. And the one that came after it.

[nuraman00]

I didn't know Moe Taylor showed his nuts to Sterling.

++++++++++++++++++

Then we played against Houston, and Moe Taylor had just left the Clippers to go there in the offseason, and this man is looking like he just escaped from a kidnapping or something. He drops like a 30-clip on us, and after every bucket, he’s running past Donald Sterling’s seat, grabbing his damn nuts.

[windsoruk]

Awesome read!
I spent a lot of time around the team Darius's first year - that was the best time to be a Clipper fan.

[clipps]

Awesome read. I'm happy that things are "alright" for him. That's definitely been one mystery that I would thing about from time to time. This guy and Q are what drew me into the Clippers. I started to watch them mid way through the 2000-2001 season and I remember always being at the edge of my seat at the end of every game. Darius had some monster tomahawk dunks. I remember every time he would grab a long rebound and go coast to coast or any fast break play, I was ready to see a nasty dunk. I remember in the 2001-2002 season, the Clippers were blowing out the Pacers by 30 and Darius attempted a double windmill that hit the back of the iron. Those were such fun seasons to be a Clippers fan. And then we effing traded him for ChipPunk Andre Miller.

At the time, that trade looked really good on paper. The Clippers needed a true PG to glue the talent we had together and take the Clippers to the next level and Miller was supposed to be that guy. A big 'what if' I always think about is if we didn't trade Miles. Maybe his career would have been a little bit different. The obvious thing that took a hit after the Miles trade was chemistry. Q was depressed and his game declined that following year. Andre Miller mailed it in as soon as the season started. LO and Kandiman were cancers and always hurt. Speaking of Kandi, that dude has to be one of the dumbest and most selfish players in the history of the NBA. Turning down that 60 million dollar contract and not willing to learn from Kareem. I think he's second to Austin Rivers as my absolute least favorite ex Clipper. Elton Brand and Corey Maggette were the only ones that took the season serious. There was no more toughness and excitement.

I agree that Mike Dunleavy was the pioneer of the Clippers turning their franchise around, but it was D Miles, Q and Odom that made it "cool" to be a Clippers fan.

Great article, it sure did bring back some awesome... and terrible memories. This franchise sure has come a LONG way since.

[Deleted]

I can't believe DMiles and Q were trolling high school basketball games to meet girls. They could have at least hung out at USC or UCLA.

[kandi34]

That was a great read. I'm the same age as Miles,37 😁. Those were the fun clipper days!

[nuraman00]

Oct 24, 2018 16:24:20 GMT -8 clipps said:

Awesome read. I'm happy that things are "alright" for him. That's definitely been one mystery that I would thing about from time to time. This guy and Q are what drew me into the Clippers. I started to watch them mid way through the 2000-2001 season and I remember always being at the edge of my seat at the end of every game. Darius had some monster tomahawk dunks. I remember every time he would grab a long rebound and go coast to coast or any fast break play, I was ready to see a nasty dunk. I remember in the 2001-2002 season, the Clippers were blowing out the Pacers by 30 and Darius attempted a double windmill that hit the back of the iron. Those were such fun seasons to be a Clippers fan. And then we effing traded him for ChipPunk Andre Miller.

At the time, that trade looked really good on paper. The Clippers needed a true PG to glue the talent we had together and take the Clippers to the next level and Miller was supposed to be that guy. A big 'what if' I always think about is if we didn't trade Miles. Maybe his career would have been a little bit different. The obvious thing that took a hit after the Miles trade was chemistry. Q was depressed and his game declined that following year. Andre Miller mailed it in as soon as the season started. LO and Kandiman were cancers and always hurt. Speaking of Kandi, that dude has to be one of the dumbest and most selfish players in the history of the NBA. Turning down that 60 million dollar contract and not willing to learn from Kareem. I think he's second to Austin Rivers as my absolute least favorite ex Clipper. Elton Brand and Corey Maggette were the only ones that took the season serious. There was no more toughness and excitement.

I agree that Mike Dunleavy was the pioneer of the Clippers turning their franchise around, but it was D Miles, Q and Odom that made it "cool" to be a Clippers fan.

Great article, it sure did bring back some awesome... and terrible memories. This franchise sure has come a LONG way since.

Not to get too off topic, and while most may disagree, I just didn't see Miller as having mailed it in.  He was always more of a cool/calm/collected guy, who didn't show much emotion.  So it's hard to read how he was feeling, by looking at him.

That's different than someone like Miles or Q, who you could tell by looking at them.

I also think Miller played a smart game.

I liked both what Miller brought, and what Miles brought.  But I also thought Miles always struck me as someone who was not prepared for what life in the NBA was like. Which isn't surprising, given that he was drafted out of high school.

He also always struck me as someone that was good in high school because he was more athletic than everyone.



It didn't seem like it was something he had to work at, and spend time in the gym.



In that article, he barely talked about playing basketball when he was growing up. It was more about how near the end of high school, when he saw the Raptors were scouting him, he then saw it was a way he could escape from living in East St. Louis.



Compare that to someone like Jason Kidd, who has talked about how he had to prove himself against bigger players, and work on his game to get as good as them.

Olowokandi's shot selection was the biggest reason for the demise, IMO.  After that, Odom with his injuries and suspensions.  When Odom came back, he then thought he needed to prove himself, so started taking bad shots.  His FG% dropped to 41.9% and .190 from 3-point land, in 2001-2002.

JMO.

[nuraman00]

Since Cleveland wanted to tank 2002-2003, Olowokandi for Miller would have been a better trade. Olowokandi would have helped Cleveland lose even more.

Although, that would have hurt their draft lottery luck. They lost the draft lottery tiebreaker with Denver, but ended up getting the # 1 overall pick, even though Denver had that extra 1/1000 chance.

So things worked out for Cleveland.