Darius Miles is not a name that comes up all too often because the 34-year-old last played an NBA game in 2009. However, a report out of Miles' hometown of Belleville, Illinois says the former no. 3 overall pick in the 2000 NBA Draft is bankrupt.
How can an NBA star, who earned millions, end up broke? Bad investments, injuries and legal problems are the culprits, apparently, but one could offer a simpler solution: Miles never attended college.
When the Clippers drafted Miles, no high school basketball player had ever been selected at a higher draft position. Only four years earlier, Kobe Bryant had joined the Lakers as the no. 13 overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft straight out of high school. However, the NBA would soon draft Kwame Brown with the no. 1 in 2001, and LeBron James would enter straight out of high school in 2003 as the no. 1 overall pick.
The Clippers brought Miles into the NBA, where he played for two seasons before being traded to Cleveland. Not long after, the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Miles to the Portland Trail Blazers. Unfortunately, Miles suffered a series of debilitating injuries that forced the 6'9" forward to miss the entire 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons.
Eventually, Miles would finish his professional career as a member of the Memphis Grizzlies following the 2008-09 season.
Finished with his professional playing career at age 27 and without any second career lined up, Miles only made headlines for the wrong reasons. In 2011, Miles attempted to bring a loaded gun onto a plane. Obviously, he was arrested.
Following that incident, Miles kept a low profile. However, the 34-year-old listed only $460,385 in assets compared to $1.57 million in liabilities, according to the report. Essentially, if Miles could sell everything he owned three times over, he'd still come up short on the money he owes.
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According to the report, Miles originally filed for bankruptcy in June. However, the former basketball player is not alone in terms of financial floundering. Sixty percent of NBA players file for bankruptcy within five years of retirement per the same report. By those standards, Miles beat the odds by taking all of seven years before going broke.
Any way one breaks down Miles' journey from Mr. Basketball of Illinois in 2000 to dead broke in 2016, it's a sad, sad tale that is all too familiar in NBA retirement circles.
