Trade him as soon as you get a chance (offseason). I greatly doubt we'll be seeing him in a Rockets uniform next season. I think both him and the Rocket's organization know his time here is up.
Could we send Martin and a combo of picks or players to Minnesota for their top draft pick? Don't they have a top 10 protected from the Clippers this year? I'm not 100% positive about their draft situation. Adelman is dying for some Kmart up there. Brad Miller needs his life partner as well. They need veteran players not more draft picks.
Obviously gon keep him till next traded deadline and see how he does before then...to early to tell.....
I'm amazed at these responses. The correct answer is to find a way to make him as effective this year as he was last year.
I don't understand why people keep dreaming up these scenarios where a top free agent chooses to come to Houston. A scenario where we acquire a top player in a trade is much more likely. Of course the trade would probably be a bad trade for us, because it would probably involve us trading for a player with an expiring contract and a strong possibility of that player deciding to walk away from Houston at the end of that contract. I really don't think the Rockets want Martin on the team anymore, lets see if we can get some Picks or young talent in return. I'd like to see the Rockets just focus on getting more picks and building through the draft.
That is simply not possible because we do not have a high post passing big man and we are not running the Adelman high post cutting offense we ran last year. You have to face facts. When we lost Hayes and we didn't get Gasol, our opportunities to run the high post passing game went in the toilet and we became a point guard creating team. Martin needs his high post passing big man for his cutting game. If Adelman was still here, Martin would be struggling because there is not a high post passer on this team. So, even if Martin gets healthy and comes back this season (not going to happen), it is impossible to make him look as good as possible because the big men on our roster don't have the skill set to do that.
Im sure at some point in his life(high school, college, later days in Sacramento) he had success as a basketball player without getting back door passes from Brad Miller in the Princeton corner set under Rick Adelman. Even this year he had games where he went crazy at times scoring the ball. This all comes back to risk/reward to me. Its low risk to keep him on the roster next season, seeing as though he wont get you back much of anything in a trade, if not bring back someone who makes the team worse in the long run(ruin cap flexibility), and high reward if he comes back healthy next year and provides you a 20+ PPG scoring option whether it be starting or off the bench. Worse comes to worst you can just rent him for the first three months of the season and trade his A$# at the deadline as an expiring. That being said, if there is a trade out there for him that makes sense, OF COURSE... trade him. Right now, in this NBA trade market, I just dont see him getting anything back that either makes the team better, or doesn't hurt their salary cap flexibility going forward.
2011 - Pump fake, defender jumps in the air, Martin jumps towards the defender, FOULED CALLED 2012 - Pump fake, defender jumps in the air, Martin jumps towards the defender, NO CALL Time to get traded
Those aren't facts, those are opinions. Facts are things like Martin has had numerous games this year where he was extremely effective without the high post offense. Coach needs to figure out how to give him the ball coming around screens and going left. Maybe Dragic would do a better job at it than Lowry. This happens every freaking year. People pick a villian on the team and demand he be traded/cut. Martin is a really good player and we need figure out how to use him in the new offense, instead of this scapegoating BS.
Truth. CFers are a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately group. If you've been out for a few games then your backup is automatically better than you (see C. Lee and G. Dragic). Remember when Lowry was our best player and our brightest young prospect? Now he's just trade fodder to CFers. Look, lars is right. Martin can still be our team's top scorer and games like last night show us why that is so needed on this team. His defense is passable-his eFG% against is 47.2% as a SG and 46.7% as a SF (82 games). He's been playing injured for a while and that's hurt his play. Why does an injury to Martin not matter but everyone is ready to give Ppat a pass on his poor play this year? Lowry is probably our most valuable trade asset but Martin isn't too far behind. He's in his prime (assuming he gets healthy). I wouldn't trade him for peanuts and we're a much better team with him playing. I'd be okay with trading him but we need to get someone of similar value in return.
I'm not scapegoating him. I've always liked the efficiency of Martin's game. And honestly, I can think of no other single player besides Wade or Kobe that would have fit better with Yao. I still feel that way. If Yao had been healthy, Martin and Yao would have been a FT line parade every game. Unstoppable. But he's going on 30, he's going into the last year of his contract, and we don't have the team around him. And the rules have changed this season and his game has suffered from that along with the change in offense. Ideally, players have to play in the system the coach puts them in. When you look at the best of the best coaches, Pops and PJax, the players all have to adapt to what they are doing, to the coach's system. And Martin has adapted as best he could. He's given the effort. But he's just not capable of being better than what he is. He's always going to be a sieve defensively and he's always going to struggle if you try to run the offense through him. He is not capable of those two things. You cannot run the offense through Martin and to utilize him best the offense has to be designed for him. Big difference right there. This offense is not designed for Kevin Martin to maximize his talents and hide his deficiencies. It's just like some players cannot be maximized in the Princeton game because they are back-it-down ball stopping scorers. And some players cannot be maximized in the Triangle offense because they just aren't intelligent enough to understand and catch the nuances of the Triangle. But they may have good bball intelligence and be very skilled and be maximized in a free-flowing look-for-space type offense. This team has reached that place with Martin. He simply doesn't fit and he's coming up on an expiring contract. He needs to be moved.
These are conclusions you have reached, but are not shared by everyone. Even in the high post system, the offense wasn't run through him....it was run through the high post. All the high post did was create opportunity for him to get the ball the GOING TO HIS LEFT WITH A LANE TO THE BASKET. The same opportunity can be created with the PG centered offense, but it has be run instead of the constant pick and rolls we run. There is nothing stopping Lowry/Dragic from calling for a back pick pin down to get Martin a shot in his comfort zone. I know everyone loves Lowry, but what was happening was constant dribbling, endless pick and rolls and then a pass to Martin with the shot clock running down which just isn't his game. So no, I don't agree with your premise at all. I don't want to replace Martin with some isolation guy or low talent guy, because that does nothing for us. Diversify the offense and make it better by utilizing the strengths of your players. Don't trade away good players because you don't know how to use them. This is the exact reason why New York is awful, trying to make Melo into a spot up shooter rather than utilizing his post up game.
I very clearly stated you cannot run the offense THROUGH Martin and to utilize him best you have to design the offense FOR him. And I NEVER AT ANY TIME said to replace Martin with an iso guy or a low talent guy. You're pulling a strawman. My premise is he is an expiring contract and at this point I think the more valuable assets to this team are Goran and Lee. That's my premise. I think going forward we can get more production and more trade value out of those two guys than we can get for Martin re-signed to 5-year deal making upwards of $14 million per which is what we will have to sign him for and keep him....and in the process of keeping him this offseason we will probably lose at least Goran and possibly both Goran and Lee.
Keeping Martin would be a mistake... Letting him go at the end of the year will free space for dragic and lee
I'm not convinced the guy's genuinely injured. Looks like a mutual decision between agent and front office to shut him down. His bread-and-butter has been foul calls. Not just points, but it also meant more court time against 2nd-string defenders or 1st stringers playing off of him. It's not a full T-Mac, but the guy doesn't have the passion/killer instinct. Looked like he simply wouldn't take the shots we asked him to take. He needs the shelter of being a third option around a star. Worst case scenario: we get a high first rounder for him or take a flyer on a head-up for Ben Gordon.
ehhh...no...he scores like t-mac tho tmac get and drawl foul as well martin is a good player his defense got a bit better but well see hopefully he play soon and redeem himself and suprise us alll...for at least rest of season and next.
