What Is Dead May Never Die: NBA players who left too soon
Darius Miles
By Miles Wray (@mileswray)
Darius Miles is still not that old. He’s still not even NBA-old. In 2014-15, all sorts of contending teams will trot out all sorts of players who are older than Darius Miles: Joe Johnson, Tayshaun Prince, Caron Butler, Drew Gooden, David West, Andrei Kirilenko are all older than Darius Miles. Andre Miller? Shawn Marion? Forget about it. Those guys are so much older than Miles they may as well be from a different generation. Dwyane Wade is only three months younger than Darius Miles.
And my oh my what a different basketball landscape it was when Miles came of age. If you look at Miles, and then you look at, say, the Draftees of 2014, it’s pretty obvious that Miles had a ton of screws loose, whereas so many of today’s lottery picks make their defense and work ethic main selling points. If Miles — drafted 3rd overall in 2000 — were teleported to be an eligible pick here in 2014, were would he go on the board? Heh, not 3rd. Would he get picked at all? More interestingly: what if Miles grew up in today’s more disciplined basketball environment? Is he actually kind of a kooky dude, or just a product of some iso-heavy times? Given that the list price for the stellar documentary about his (and Quentin Richardson’s) days as a Clipper is under $5, I would recommend you check out The Youngest Guns if you don’t know what I’m talking about — and that documentary is essentially required viewing if you do.
Alright, so in the magical YouTube clip at the top, Miles scores 47 points on the Denver Nuggets — he came off the bench for this game, and also the Trail Blazers lost. Yeah, yeah, it was a game without meaning played in the waning moments of April. But consider: LaMarcus Aldridge’s career high is 46. Kyrie Irving’s is 44. The explosive Nate Robinson has only managed 45. Chris Bosh, on his way to becoming a Hall of Famer, has only gotten up to 44. And all these dudes — some more than others — have played some sorry April basketball indeed.
Who knows what inspired Miles to give such a balanced and potent performance that night. Perhaps a certain concoction of substances lifted his mind above temporal planes. Maybe it was the rare night he gave a damn. Or maybe he just caught fire, perplexed as the rest of us as to what in tarnation came over him. I don’t think it’s incorrect to say that he looks like an underground, bizarro-dimension LeBron James here: a 6-foot-9 menace scooping up offensive rebounds for outrageous putbacks, sinking outside shots with ease, playing long-limbed defense that cued thrilling fast breaks. Miles played an all-round efficient game this day: he was 19-for-33 — an admirable percentage — with twelve rebounds, four steals, five blocks, a single turnover and, most brilliantly, zero assists.
He was only 23 years old when he did this. Still a prospect, basically.
Miles would only play 75 more games in the NBA after this one, a crazy plummet from stardom to oblivion. There would be one more empty obligation to fill out this, the 2004-05 season, then he would play 40 games for Portland in 2005-06, capped off by a devastating microfracture surgery on his knee. After a two-year recovery, there would be 34 bizarre games for the Memphis Grizzlies in 2008-09 — on a team that also featured Javaris Crittenton, Darko Milicic, Hakim Warrick, and a rookie Marc Gasol — where he was an earth-bound hustler, averaging a scant 8.8 minutes a game. And then, nothing.