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LarsV8 wrote:Seems pretty spot on, except it doesn't give him credit for his playing the passing lanes well. Also can score from anywhere is a bit of a stretch. Doesn't mention he excels in a motion system and doesn't play well in a half court setting which should be noted. Decline was due to injury and system change, not really age.

Guy986 wrote:Here is my scouting report for Shaq. You have my permission to post it on your website.

Strength is on offense. One of the most unstoppable big man in the history of basketball. Possess quick accurate hook shots from both hands around the rim. Amazing free throw shooter. Has range out to 20 feet. Quick limbs despite being fat. Runs extremely well for a man his size in transition. Can hit the open 3. Finish well in contact. Dunks everything inside. Also fat.

I wasn't kidding in the riddle. Ever since the 2007 season, Kevin Martin has been among the greatest one-man offensive players in the NBA, at least in terms of efficiency. There are two extremely efficient things that a shooting guard can do on offense -- get to the line and shoot a three. Look at it this way -- the best offense in the league last year, the San Antonio Spurs, scored roughly 1.00 points per possession. Kevin Martin is an 85% free throw shooter. Every single time Kevin Martin goes to the line, his expected points for that possession are his FT% * Points Scored -- so, 0.85. His expected PPP of a possession where he goes to the line for two shots is 1.70. The same property of well-above-average production holds true of his three point shot, where Martin is a career 0.377 -- that leads to an expected PPP of 1.13. Those are two of Martin's biggest play types, by far, and both of them blow the combined efforts of one of the greatest offenses in the league out of the water. He knows what works.

It's no wonder, then, that Martin is so blasted efficient. Because all things considered, he does virtually nothing else. Martin is essentially a case study in the idea that an NBA player could be an offensive star simply by paring his game down to only a few specific, efficient play types. To wit, over Martin's career, he's scored 8728 points. Of those points, 2232 came from behind the three point line, and 2716 of them came from the free throw line. That means that in Martin's career, almost 60% of the points he's scored came from free throws or threes. There are many people who take a lot of free throws -- there are currently 29 active players that have made more than Martin in their careers -- but few are oh-so reliant on them. Few non-superstars, anyway. In any event, Martin has made a living paring his offense down to a few highly efficient shots and play-types. And he's done a good job of it, up until age began to bite at his efficiency last season.

So, given all these things, why is he so hard to watch? After all, I'm a statistician in my day job. I obsessively try to make every aspect of my life more efficient, and take great joy in it. But Kevin Martin's game simply rubs me the wrong way, you know? It's not a lack of effort -- you get this robotic sense watching Martin, that his anemic defense is calculated in its laziness, knowing he can exert some amount more energy on offense if he lays back on defense. He gives up his body to the game, playing all-out and risking injury constantly for the benefit of his free throw efficiency -- exactly what most people chastise stars for avoiding (although it's led to lots of injury issues, with Martin). He takes efficient shots and makes them. He's the type of player can score 30 on 15 shots, without really breaking a sweat.

But this game, this style... is simply so dull, so bare, so bereft of creativity. It's incredibly hard to watch on a regular basis. He's the essence of the stat-geek stereotype -- this player that advanced metrics say is (in theory) very good but a player whose eye-test absolutely says otherwise. If basketball is an art form, players like Tim Duncan are hardly the cold and calculating robots that publications like Free Darko make them out to be. It's Martin that really embodies it, always striving emotionlessly for that added tincture of efficiency. It's a quest, for Martin, and in its own lost and hollow way you wonder if his obsession with efficiency is just the thing that's always kept him from playing for a relevant team. For all of Martin's myriad positives, I can't escape the stinging pangs of the deepest recesses of my heart. Kevin Martin's game is simply boring. He's the little black spot on the sun today, the same old thing as yesterday -- the king of pain, tedium, and a logic so cruel and calculating it overrides the impressive efficiency with which he yokes his craft.

(... Until last season, where he simply sucked. But don't tell Houston that.)