Miles, 29, was arrested about 3:30 p.m. after Transportation Security Administration personnel discovered the weapon during an X-ray screening at the airport, according to information from a TSA spokeswoman and a jail official. Miles was arrested by St. Louis Airport police, then booked into the St. Louis County jail in Clayton later Wednesday evening.
Something about this story surprised me. No, not that Darius Miles evidently tried to carry a loaded gun through airport security. Not that. In his four years in Portland, from 2004 to 2008, Miles seemed to exist primarily to legitimize every negative stereotype about the Jail Blazers. I’d be worried about his health and well-being if he weren’t pulling this kind of stunt.
Go read the above excerpt from the St. Louis Today report on the incident. Darius Miles is 29 years old. Twenty-nine. Everyone knows Miles has been an outcast in the league for several years. He played in a handful of games with the Grizzlies in 2009, but has since been reduced to competing with 19-year-olds for a roster spot with the Bobcats. Players with Miles’ explosive scoring ability and equally formidable character issues often get pushed out of the league eventually, but Miles has been completely irrelevant for five years, and he isn’t even 30. He did miss two seasons with a microfracture, but in his brief stint in Memphis in 2009, he showed occasional flashes of the athleticism that made him the No. 3 overall pick in 2000. One would think that if he still had some of the old spark, he’d be able to land somewhere. Some team has to have a use for a forward with Miles’ scoring ability, right? But with Darius, it goes beyond what he can or can’t offer on the court.
When the NBA stopped allowing players to enter the draft out of high school in 2005, it’s guys like Miles that were targeted. For every Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, or Dwight Howard—once-in-a-generation talents who were clearly ready to make the transition at age 18—there are dozens of cautionary tales like Miles and fellow Jail Blazers alum Sebastian Telfair. Miles may be the ultimate too-much-too-soon story. Put on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 19 and given a $48 million contract at 22, he was never expected to grow up. He is most notorious in Portland for contributing to head coach Maurice Cheeks’ firing in 2005 after an incident in which Miles supposedly taunted Cheeks with racial slurs and told him, “I don’t care if we lose the next 20 games…you’re going to get fired anyway.” When you’re built up from the time you’re a teenager and handed an eight-figure contract when you’re barely old enough to drink, things like maturity and respect for authority tend to take a back seat.
That, ultimately, is what Miles’ legacy represents. Before his injury, he absolutely had the physical tools to be one of the most exciting players of his era. Instead, he is now nothing more than the single most convincing argument against allowing 18-year-olds to turn pro. This latest arrest only brings that reputation to its logical conclusion.
