C.J. Miles arrived in the NBA in a bygone way: He was drafted straight out of his Dallas high school, joining the likes of Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant and LeBron James in forgoing an NCAA stop.

That Miles is currently playing for the Raptors in his 14th NBA season suggests the decision to skip college turned out more than okay. Still, Miles will tell you the transition didn’t come without its pitfalls. As an 18-year-old rookie with the Utah Jazz, Miles averaged about nine minutes a game and spent time in the NBA’s developmental league. The adjustment from life as a high-school phenomenon to an NBA benchwarmer didn’t exactly do wonders for his sense of self.

“You go from dominating all your life to not dressing. That’s hard on the mind, on the heart,” Miles was saying on Tuesday. “Being a dominant player — that’s who I was at the time, that’s the only way I saw myself. And not being able to be myself was crazy.”

A year after Miles was drafted, in 2006, the NBA locked its gates to high-school players, instituting what’s become known as the one-and-done rule. The NCAA has clearly benefitted. And as for the players? More and more, they’ve been looking for alternatives to spending a year pretending to be students. Some have gone pro in Europe and Asia. Some will surely pursue the new “professional path” in the the NBA’s developmental G League, which will allow certain would-be one-and-done prospects to earn $125,000 U.S. a season.

This week, 18-year-old Darius Bazley introduced yet another approach to spending a pre-NBA gap year. The 6-foot-9 draft prospect from Cincinnati is reportedly earning a guaranteed salary of $1 million U.S. for a three-month internship at New Balance, the Boston-based shoe company. The pricy internship is part of an endorsement deal which could earn Bazley up to $14 million U.S. if he meets various performance markers, Bazley’s agent, Rich Paul, told the New York Times this week. The $1 million U.S. guarantee is presumably more than Bazley could have earned had he followed through on a since-retracted commitment to attend Syracuse University (although given the tales of hefty illicit cash payments that emanated from the NCAA corruption trial that wrapped up last week in New York, it would likely be foolish to underestimate the spending power of big-time college programs).

Miles, who negotiated a two-year guaranteed contract worth about $2 million U.S. when he first arrived in the NBA as a second-round pick of the Jazz, smiled at the mention of Bazley’s novel approach to pre-draft preparation.

“(New Balance) is giving a kid a way to make a living,” Miles said. “I can’t really knock a kid for figuring out how to help his family.”

Miles was speaking as the unbeaten Raptors wrapped up practice Tuesday, in the lead-up to Wednesday’s home game against Andrew Wiggins and the Timberwolves. Wednesday’s game is expected to provide the stage for the season debut of Delon Wright, the backup point guard who missed the first four games with a groin injury suffered two weeks ago in a preseason game in Montreal. Wright’s presence ought to inject a key element into the off-the-bench mix that should benefit the likes of Miles, who’s a sluggish 2-for-12 from three-point range to open the season.

Rookie coach Nick Nurse said it’s likely he’ll use Wright alongside Fred VanVleet to provide the second unit with a “dual-point guard, dual-attacking threat.” In a league so often ruled by ball handlers, using two makes some sense.

“That’s why they were so good together last year, because you never knew who was going to get the outlet and be coming at you,” Nurse said.

Said Wright of his chemistry with VanVleet: “I think we really work well together. He’s a good spot-up shooter, too, and I know I’m a good penetrator and I can find open shooters. I think that helps. When he has the ball, he can find me when I’m back-cutting.”

If Wright and VanVleet arrived in the NBA already known for their dependable maturity after spending four years apiece at post-secondary institutions, Miles’s pro origin story came attached with its teenaged hiccups.

“Not being around anybody your age, when all the guys have families. People don’t realize that as busy as we do get, there’s a lot of time when there’s nothing but time. And that’s when you get into trouble,” Miles said. “Because you’ve got to learn how to fill that time. You’ve got to learn to fight urges and temptations. You’ve got to learn how to do the right thing.”

He wasn’t the only one who found his NBA growing pains challenging. Utah’s Hall of Fame coach Jerry Sloan didn’t always exhibit patience with Miles’s inconsistencies.

“We can’t put diapers on him one night, and a jockstrap the next,” Sloan famously said.

“That’s the best quote in the world — it was on the front page of the paper,” Miles said Tuesday, smiling. “That was Coach Sloan. He was right. I tell people all the time: That’s a major part of the reason I’m still in the NBA. He taught me how to work. He taught me how to be professional.”

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Exactly how Bazley will progress as a basketball player without a looming schedule of games is anyone’s guess. He likely won’t play another contest of note until July, when he presumably joins the summer league team of the NBA franchise that drafts him. Until then, he’ll partake in strength training to beef up his slender frame and skills sessions to hone his craft. Will it be enough to maximize his potential before the draft?

“I hope the best for him. I hope he can find a way to improve his skills still, because playing is still king,” Miles said. “Being away from that for a year basically in a different world, it’s a different thing, too. I think the more you’re able to play the more you’re able to deal with everything. Not just the basketball side. Not just dealing with the coach. It’s being around players that are just as talented as you are. All the things that come with that … People take that for granted a little bit. Having a skill set is one thing. But there’s a lot of skill sets walking around every city (without NBA jobs).”