Darius Miles talks about his life in the early 2000s, Clippers is just amazing

Darius Miles opened at the Player Tribune about what it felt like to be 18 years old in the NBA and his own personal difficulties in an incredibly straightforward and often funny look at himself titled "What happened to Darius Miles?"

There is much to tell as history passes through and leads a busy life in LA to the problems his fame caused when he was a child in East St. Louis. You should definitely read the whole song on Player's Tribune, for the incredible story of Miles, as well as for the incessant interjections of his editor, friend and former teammate Quentin Richardson. This is what amazes us.

The celebration of fists in the head was neither harmful nor a conspiracy.

In the mid-2000s, the Clippers had a unified party that was never fully explained during Miles' career as a player. After a dunk or a big room, the Clippers were banging their heads, some thinking it was a gang sign, others thought it might have been a nod to life. extraterrestrial. The reality is much more commonplace.

The first take was a nod to Westchester High School, especially to Trevor Ariza, Hassan Adams and Bobby Brown – who played for the team. Miles and Richardson were too young to go to clubs with their teammates. So they watched the emerging players in high school. The trio of Westchester took advantage of the celebration after three, and after getting closer to the Clippers, they wanted to be heard.

"So we would stay with them, and they would say," Come on, when are you going to shout at us? You have to do it. Show us love. "

So, stop making me forget the ball where Q hits a big pointer or something like that, I do not even remember, and one of us throws it to the ground. Two blows to the head. For them, the boys from Westchester High.

Miles caught chicken pox in the adult and returned a jet ski … the same week.

One of his early memories of the NBA's lifestyle goes back to the invitation he had made to "Zo's Summer Groove," a legendary off-season evening hosted by Alonzo Mourning in Miami at early 2000s. All the best players went there, legends of the NBA like Allen Iverson and Gary Payton – as well as actors and musicians, this was a huge problem.

But Miles has never been able to party. Shortly after the first day, he learned that he was suffering from chicken pox and that he spent most of his week in a hotel, taking baths of oatmeal and he putting ice bags on his head.

"Dude, Q is running around South Beach with these boys and I'm sitting in the bathtub taking a bath of oats and shit. And the worst thing was that he would come back to see me and lay on my forehead with a bag of big-ass pack ice and run into the room like a little boy – just like he had time to life. "

Mourning made him an incredible offer when Miles finally felt better – he should go out on a wave runner. It did not go well.

"I hit the edge of this boat with the jet ski and I tipped over – I'm talking reversed this bitch. And now I'm upside down, flying in the air. And I can just see the newspapers flashing in my mind, like, NBA ROOKIE DEATH IN A DAMN JET SKI ACCIDENT IN SOUTH BEACH.

So I'm like Nah, I did not survive 18 years of my life in East St. Louis to drown myself in the damn marina of Alonzo Mourning. We do not go out like that.

So I do a little tuck-and-roll or whatever, and I touch the water. Ploosh. Go underneath. Now, you may not know about me, but I can really swim. I am like black Michael Phelps. This is not a problem. But what concerns me is that I do not make sea water. Too trouble, man. If I can not see below me, I am outside. "

Fortunately, he was fine, even though Richardson remembers Miles yelling about seaweed.

Miles's childhood was harder than you can imagine.

He does not remember exactly why he was put in the head when he was 11, but Miles remembers everything. It was just the case of being the biggest of kids.

"I was the youngest child, but I was the tallest. So he came straight to me, thinking that I was the leader. When you look in the barrel of a gun, you have one thing that can save you, and that is not a reasoning with the man. It's the power. "

Miles thinks he would have been killed that day if he had not dropped his father's name, which was enough to roll the man back and he was not bothered anymore. Miles says his father was not really in his life, but he was tired of making sure his son was not touched.

Meeting Michael Jordan was a surreal moment for a child from East St. Louis.

"So I spent a lot of time at MJ – and of course he's MJ, so he moved. He killed me. But I always attacked him fiercely and he began to show me respect. After the camp, I had a picture with him and everything I wanted, and I brought him home and I put him on the coat, as if MJ was there. 39, one of my uncles or something.

And I remember my mom saying, "What is MJ like?

And I said, "Mom, it's so crazy. Michael Jordan was here cussin '. He speaks like us!

The Clippers were hurting compared to the rest of the NBA.

Everyone knows the name of Donald Sterling and his horrible human – and his players see him too, even without knowing his story. While the league teams were training in multi-million dollar training facilities with all the luxury possible, the Clippers were forced to go to a south-central JUCO for safety. exercise.

"It was a different moment, man. It was the peak of the Sterling era. I mean, we practiced literally in a fucking JUCO. A junior college. In the center-south.

Editor's Note: You can not even take a shower. The showers were old school joints with the big pipe in the middle of the floor with the spouts coming out on all sides. Half of them broke out. It was ridiculous.

Players went to a JUCO car park in Inglewood, driving Aston Martins and Ferraris. Random guys came out of the classroom, walking through the cup, like "Yooooooooooooooooo!

I mean, me and Q, we were used to it. It was nothing. We grew up in this environment.

But you know, Eric Piatkowski was from South Dakota and he thought, "Yoooooooo hell that is happening? Get me outta right here."

Richardson intercedes in a note from the editor to tell a story that is … scary.

"Editor's Note: People are always asking us about Sterling in search of crazy stories. But honestly, he was not really there. From time to time, he entered the locker room outside of nowhere with all his old friends dressed in mink and shit coats. We would be completely naked, we would change, and he would say nonsense, like, "Look at these boys! Look at my handsome boys! And we were shooting at each other, it looks like, "Yo! Duh fuuuuuuuuck?

The death of his mother sent him to a dark place.

Miles has lost a lot over the years: his money, his fame, his work in the NBA – but it's only when he lost his mother to cancer that things collapsed. He was frank about the harshness of life and the difficulty of keeping things together.

"I was stuck in my mother's house in East St. Louis for about three years. I worked all my life to get out of there and I was back. Just … trapped. Wear my weapon with me everywhere. Impossible to sleep. I could not escape my own head. Impossible to find peace. "

Fortunately, Miles got away with it. When he was down, he called Richardson, who was now living in Florida, and admitted that he needed help to get out of a dark place. He drove all night in a U-Haul in Florida and now lives near his friend – and more importantly: he has found peace.

"Now, I live on Q Street in Florida. I like it there. For the first time in years, I can sleep at night. I do not need to carry a gun. I can finally have some peace. I'm just trying to improve myself, day in and day out. Trying to be a better person, day in and day out.

Me and Q, we no longer have the corresponding trucks. We do not live this lifestyle. But what do you know? You can say what you want from us, but you can not remove a simple fact.

No matter who we meet – MJ, Paul Pierce, Shawn Kemp, some guy on the street …

They know. They know what we did. "