It's a non-guaranteed contract. That means he can be cut at any time for any reason. If they actually want to play him in the 10 games required to put his salary on Portland's books, they will have to put him on their active roster and pay him for at least 20 games - the 10 games for his suspension + 10 more to screw Portland. This would require Darius to be productive, injury free and on his best behavior for a month. Unles. of coure, Memphis doesn't care one little bit if he's actually productive.
While all the reports out of Boston were about what model citizen Darius was during pre-season, he actually stunk pretty bad when he played - and the more he played the less productive he became. In the end, he wasn't good enough to even get the 15th roster spot in Boston. Now, Memphis isn't Boston, but they have plenty of young forwards that are all more productive than Darius Miles will be. So, playing him in 10 games will actually make them worse. Of course, they are so bad, they probably don't care. There is definitely something more here than simply adding a guy to their roster. They don't need Miles, and there are plenty of young guys in the NBDL that would help them more than Miles, and that might actually have a future in the NBA - and they'd be a lot cheaper.
Techincally, Miles has been in the league for 8 seasons. He hasn't played in the last two, but he was still on Portland's roster. The NBA minimum salary for a player with 8 years of experience is $1,141,838. If all Memphis really wanted was a practice player with a pulse, they could have gotten one a lot cheaper (and with a brighter future) than Miles.
Nope, there is definitely something more to this than a simple player acquisition.
BNM
