It wasn’t long ago that Kevin Martin was freaking awesome — an advanced-stats darling who canned 3s, got to the line at an absurd rate, and did enough on offense that you could almost ignore the damage he inflicted on the other end. He’s still pretty good; he averaged 21.5 points per 36 minutes last season, and he’s clearly a better player than LaVine today. The Wolves don’t really care.
“We want to put the best possible team on the floor, but not just for the present,” Newton says. “We have to develop young players. You may not like coming off the bench as a veteran, but if that’s the role we give you, we expect you to embrace it.” Martin was meant for a playoff contender centered around Kevin Love. LaVine is Flip Saunders’s “home run” shot for the future.
Martin doesn’t feel as well suited for the NBA of the 2010s — the NBA where Tom Thibodeau’s overloading defenses forced teams to get creative on offense and keep the ball flying side-to-side. Martin’s not really a catch-and-go guy off the ball, and he’s not a lead dog pick-and-roll distributor who picks out shooters all over the floor. He has cracked three assists per 36 minutes just once in his career. He likes to run off screens, catch the ball, survey the landscape, and go to work one-on-one.2
He’s a good shooter, but he still jacks too many long 2s — especially after curling around a pick, Kyle Korver– and J.J. Redick–style. Only 25 percent of the shots Martin took per game were 3s, per Synergy Sports. Almost half of Redick’s shots in those situations were 3s, and 75 percent of Korver’s came from beyond the arc.
Martin’s a very good shooter, but his unconventional release takes a ton of time to load up; he just can’t launch as fast as those other guys. If a defender gets lost under a pick, Martin has time to let fly. He also likes to nail contested 3s over smaller defenders who can’t bother his vision, even if they are standing almost in Martin’s jersey for the entirety of his windup.
Martin subsists mostly on midrange shots and by using his weirdo herky-jerky moves to goad unwitting defenders into “fouling” him. That trickery just doesn’t work as well as it used to, since the NBA decided the rip-through wasn’t a real move worthy of shooting fouls. Oh, Martin still punks some fools. He’ll catch the ball up top, make a big show of looking to his right as if a screen is coming, wait for the defender to peek for that pick, and then take a single dribble the other way — and right into his defender’s arm.
The second Martin feels contact, usually after just one dribble, he’s launching. Sometimes he gets the call and even nails some goofy floater. Sometimes the refs roll their eyes and an ugly shot bangs off the rim. He’s almost like a rich man’s Lou Williams, and just as Williams collapsed in the postseason for Toronto when officials wouldn’t tolerate his crap, Martin’s teams have cratered in crunch time to an almost absurd degree.
Martin’s skills just aren’t as valuable as they used to be, and that makes his utter inability to defend anyone an intolerable blemish for some teams.
But he’s still a valuable bench scorer on an affordable $7.1 million contract, and teams that need a little extra juice should take a hard look at him. Martin has a $7.4 million player option for next season, but that shouldn’t be a dealbreaker for anyone other than a Washington/Miami/Houston type carving out a specific amount of cap space for use on a specific target. And if Martin plays well, he should turn that option down to snag one last long-term contract at age 33.
Minnesota doesn’t need any more young guys, and Newton swears the Wolves don’t want to trade Martin. But Minnesota is out two future first-rounders; it would be nice to recoup one, or even to acquire another player between the ages of 21 and 40. Minnesota almost certainly won’t get a first-round pick for Martin, but there will be workable deals out there — especially after December 15, when free agents signed last summer become tradable. Some contender or playoff hopeful will struggle, feel desperate, and get ready to talk turkey.
Charlotte just lost Michael Kidd-Gilchrist for the season, and the Hornets are under enormous pressure to make the playoffs. They’re holding strong for now, but they’d have to think about a deal involving Jeremy Lamb and filler for a more proven guy like Martin. A 2-for-1 deal like that would leave Minnesota with one too many guaranteed contracts, but the Wolves could just waive someone cheap, or send an extra player into the Philly/Portland/Utah cap space. The Lamb type — a young flop, basically — is the target that makes the most sense for the Wolves. If the Kings even considered dealing Ben McLemore for Martin, the NBA should just burn the franchise down, but you can’t put anything past the Kings.
