Puzzling over Darius Miles, Blazer Trades, and Mike Barrett's Lost Text

So last week we had this draft thingy, and Portland's future started looking just a bit rosier. During the draft, Kevin Pritchard did all sorts of trading, and there were pieces still falling into place the next morning (by which I mean our new SF, James Jones).

James Jones was actually announced as fall-out of the draft in our favor by, among others, Mike Barrett, a Trailblazers employee and part of their PR machine, on his blog (which is linked to the Blazers website).

Meanwhile, KP was discussing a mysterious back-end to the draft night excitement which he couldn't get into, but which would apparently net us a small forward.

There is something interesting in all of this:

I quoted Barrett's blog over at the Metroblog as I was following up on the draft fall-out the next day. The post where Barrett discussed James Jones originally said this:

Now, there was one other move you didn't hear about, and it won't be made official for about a week. The Blazers, in conjunction with the trade to New York, used a trade exception to purchase the Fernandez pick (which you did hear about) and will also acquire Phoenix's James Jones. Jones is a good outside shooter and was very solid with the Suns the past couple of seasons.

That quote, strangely, is now gone, as are almost all comments referring to James Jones.

I used the fact that Barrett had released the news on Jones while KP was keeping mum about something to fuel my personal opinion that Jones wasn't the SF that KP was referring to. Now, I'm not so sure. Maybe Barrett let slip something he shouldn't. Or, maybe, the Blazers are playing games. Who knows?

But, anyway, most people think there's still trading to be done. Over on 1080 The Fan, they were speculating that maybe KP has secured a buyer for Darius Miles' contract, and perhaps that's part of the deal he can't discuss, because he talked about cap relief or something like that.

And that has me thinking: who would take Darius' contract, and why?

According to an acquaintance of mine that knows some stuff, here's the deal with Darius. He's injured and useless and probably won't be getting back into playing shape. He can't be approached to ask him to quit. If he does quit, though, there's cap relief for the team when he signs the papers. Darius may not be team-oriented enough, or smart enough, to get that he's just a pain in the ass until he does sign the papers. Our only hope is that his agent, who has to continue working in this league, can help him see the light.

Now, here's my thought: the Blazers can't approach Darius and ask him to quit. But does that mean that Darius can't approach the Blazers to negotiate the terms of his resignation?

I don't even know what I mean by that, by the way. He's got a huge paycheck coming when he signs the papers, and I don't know that he could modify his contract at all to get out of it. But, at the same time, he's in an awfully strong bargaining position, I'd think. The Blazers want him gone, and it's conceivable that, if he realizes that, he can utilize that need of theirs to fulfill some desires of his own. What sort, I don't know.

But, hypothetically, if he's already approached the team and negotiated some terms of some sort (maybe a cut on some merchandise, or free rides on Paul's plane, or a new laptop with the latest Windows OS every year for the rest of his life), and they have agreed to those terms to secure his promise to leave the team, then perhaps there is something to the idea that a team would take him. Because, it seems to me, that they'd get the benefit of his quitting on their cap that the Blazers would have got.

Of course, I may be insane. Tell me if I am.

Either way, I still think something's up. Blazer brass (and Mike Barrett) have freely acknowledged that we picked up Rudy Fernandez in the draft after acquiring the pick from New York (in fact, that's even still on the same Barrett Blog post I've already linked). But when asked questions about Rudy on Friday by Isaac Ropp on 1080, including whether he'll be coming over or whether he'll be on the summer league team, KP zipped his lip and said he couldn't discuss it. Which means that Rudy is part of a deal (and not the deal that netted us the now-mysterious James Jones from Phoenix) and is going to move on July 11th.

So, what gives? Is Darius moving? Is he even moveable? What deals are cooking? And what happened on Mike Barrett's Blog? So much intrigue...

UPDATE 7/3/07: JOHN CANZANO AT THE OREGONIAN REVEALS THE BACK-END ON HIS BLOG. STILL DOESN'T EXPLAIN THE RUDY FERNANDEZ MYSTERY TO ME...)