Goodbye (and hello…?) to Darius Miles

Deep breath. Here goes.

My beloved Boston Celtics have just signed Darius Miles.

Miles has spent several turbulent years here in Portland with the Trail Blazers and hasn’t played in two years, so he’s supposedly on the Redemption Train (which might just get confused with the Gravy Train this year when the Cs repeat as NBA champs).

So I guess I’m going to have to get used to not seeing him around town. When I taught at Marylhurst a few years back, I saw him more than a couple times grab lunch at the Subway in Lake Oswego (the last time was just after he had his knee surgery; he slunk in sporting a scraggly beard, mirrored aviator shades and Bob Marley shirt….my best guess that spring day was that he *definitely* wasn’t on his way to practice, nor in any condition to take any sort of field test, if you catch my drift), and he’ll most certainly need to find another Genius Bar to help him color coordinate his iPhone with his Macbook:

Of course, what I won’t be able to get used to is seeing this dude anywhere near a basketball court, let alone sporting the Celtics’ green and white. I’m most passionate about the Cs but I also have a real fondness for the hometown Blazers, so I’m pretty conflicted about watching him leave my neighborhood only to wind up getting beamed right back into my home via high-def satellite TV (NBA League Pass FTW!) when the season starts back up in November.

But hey I’m gonna try to be at least a little optimistic about it: if Kevin Garnett can’t turn this KG wanna-be’s career around, pretty much no one else can.

Boston, secure your Subway and Apple stores, and get a parking space ready for this behemoth:

He’s [y]our problem now.

QOTD: Bill Simmons

“For Celtics fans, the only way Game 6 could have been more satisfying was if Kobe flipped out in the fourth quarter and punched Sasha Vujacic during a timeout, then got dragged to the locker room by five teammates screaming, “This isn’t over! This isn’t over!” while Sasha sobbed into a towel.”

Dear Bill Plaschke,

You wrote this just a few hours ago, after the Lakers were handed their asses yet again by a vastly superior Celtics team:

Speaking of bad, yeah, the guy who began the series being carried off the floor and placed into a wheelchair was the Series MVP, an award that Pierce should place next to his Oscar.

Seriously, sir, give Paul Pierce his due and stop making an ass of yourself by saying shit like this. Pierce has played 10 years in the league and spent a lot of that time being ignored completely by the national media. He deserves the award more than anyone in recent memory, and dominated in this playoff run in a manner not seen since a certain player wearing #23 for an NBA team hailing from somewhere called Chicago, IL. You’ve wasted a lot of ink lately comparing Kobe Bryant to That Certain Player, which is a damn shame, really, because in characterizing Pierce’s efforts in Game 1 as so much melodrama you demonstrated just how ignorant you are.

Ignorant, of course, of The Truth. You may not recognize him sans wheelchair, but he’s this guy:

Scoreboard, straight up.

-T