Former NBA forward Darius Miles seemed destined for a long, lucrative career when he entered the league in 2000 as the third overall pick.
Today, he is serving a three-year probation after pleading guilty in 2023 to federal charges — one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud. In October 2021, Miles, 43, was among 18 former NBA players charged with conspiring to defraud the league’s health and welfare benefit plan. The scheme involved filing false claims for medical and dental expenses that never occurred, with the players allegedly receiving around $2.5 million to $4 million through this fraudulent activity.
But before his latest legal woes, Miles seemed to have a bright future. Coming straight out of high school in East St. Louis, he signed a rookie deal worth about $3 million a year. Over eight seasons in the NBA, Miles earned about $62 million in salary alone. His peak came in 2008, when he made around $9 million with the Portland Trail Blazers. He also had endorsement such as with Nike.
But despite the fortune he amassed, Miles filed for bankruptcy in 2016, only six years after his playing days ended. The saga of his bankruptcy recently resurfaced in various media outlets.
Miles’ finicaial troubles, he has said, is rooted in his upbringing. Raised by a single mother, he said his upbringing was one marked by violence and scarcity. Then he was thrown into a world of private jets, luxury cars and high-profile connections. The money seemed endless. But Miles shared it wasn’t flashy spending that drained his accounts. “It takes a long time to go broke buying Ferraris,” he wrote in a 2018 essay in The Players’ Tribune. “What makes you go broke are shady business deals.”
Those deals, such as a failed real estate investments in California and downtown St. Louis, cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars and set off a series of lawsuits. By the time he filed for bankruptcy, he listed $1.57 million in liabilities, including IRS debt and unpaid child support. Personal tragedy deepened his spiral: the loss of his mother to cancer in 2013 sent him into a depression.
To satisfy creditors, Miles was forced to auction off much of what he owned, from sports memorabilia to firearms to thousands of DVDs and video games. The image was stark — a former NBA star selling pieces of his life to stay afloat.
He is currently doing the “Knuckleheads” sports podcast with fellow former NBA player Quentin Richardson. The show features unfiltered conversations about sports and culture with high-profile athletes, musicians, and entertainers as guests.
Time will tell, if Miles gets back on his feet after serving his sentence. So, the question is whether he can write a new storyline for himself — one defined not by loss, but by renewal and lessons learned.