Good post. Martin is putting up superstar stats and still gets no respect from his teams fans. These past two games he has been showing that he can come through in the clutch. Fans should give props where props are due. Stop hating because his face hasn't been on a cereal box.
from Yahoo sports http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/teams/hou/report "G Kevin Martin had struggled in many ways with the physical Warriors defense on him, but knew he could use that when he needed to. In the fourth quarter, he needed to. With the game on the line, Martin repeatedly drew fouls, and made 10 of 10 free throws in the final eight minutes of the game. He scored 17 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter, making seven of 14 shots and three of four 3-pointers while getting three assists and five rebounds." The thing about Kevin is he's a student of the game. He will take what the defense is giving him and turn it to his advantage. He wants to take the next step. We have to be patient with him and the team. He's learning; he's growing ... and doing it together with the team.
I kind of disagree with this description, because the majority of those free throws down the stretch came from the Warriors intentionally fouling him. I can remember at least three times, or six free throws. The thing that actually impresses me about Martin is how often he has been able to score 20+ points even when the refs are NOT calling the fouls in his favor. It's like he figures out early on how the game is being called and adjusts his game accordingly. The guy just knows how to get his points.
the guy is an all star..... all that talk about he is just a super role player is all bull s-hit!!! name 3 role players that do what he does? :grin:
it's not no respect, it's that his skillset is perfectly suited to being a #2, great movement off the ball with ridiculously high efficiency but lacks the ability to score in traffic or when strongly guarded, but when not, will punish teams as well as if not better than anyone. What does that say really? get someone who can take the heat, and run kevin in a triangle so the help defense needs to come from his man often (that was morey's plan and unless a 1 in a million of hakeem convincing dwight, there's really no way we can get that.). He's still a great player, but his scoring would be sublime as a #2 in that sort of offense.
Did anyone see kMart get absolutely hacked on that fast break pull up jumper last night? The refs purposely refuse to call blatant fouls even though he's a flopper sometimes, and he still puts up big numbers.
Yep. The refs were trying hard to give the warriors the game. On the other end, Ellis without even getting touched got the calls.
The difference for Martin this year is he's healthy again. Last two seasons he played hurt when he could play at all. This guy looks like the Kevin Martin of 2007-2008. Let's all pray he stays healthy because I don't think this team could lose him.
he succeeded in the 4th quarter because he didn't have to create the shots, he was just running the play and finishing. we ran a battier, scola, martin curl screen option that worked really well. That's why Martin needs play makers around him, he is good at finishing plays, not so much creating for himself or others.
Martin is 12th among shooting guards in the league in assists averaging 2.4. Not too shabby considering he's not meant to be the ball handler in Adelman's offense. Lowry is 11th among point guards averaging 7.3. Shows that not many shooting guards are meant to collect assists, they are meant to ... SHOOT.
Per game, Martin is 19th in assists amongst SGs: http://www.hoopdata.com/regstats.aspx?team=%&type=pg&posi=SG&yr=2011&gp=0&mins=0 Moreover, he gets above average number of minutes per game, so that's not even an apples-to-apples comparison. Per minute (with 20 mpg cutoff, 10 games played cutoff), he's 23rd out of 40 SGs in assists. He's 33rd out of 40 in assist-rate (which is tendency to get an assist versus shoot the ball or turn it over). And that's with the SG list being populated largely by spot-up shooting role players. Amongst SGs that are asked to create shots for themselves, he's near the bottom in assisting.
Lots of ways to play the numbers game. Of shooting guards who play over 30 minutes, only 2 play less minutes than Martin. Which means all the rest play more than Martin and golly, they average a couple more assists. Martin is NOT called on in this offense to collect assists. Most of Martin's passing is pushing the ball into Scola or Miller who rarely shoot directly, but become the main ball handler in Adelman's offense. Martin IS called on in this offense to SHOOT the ball. To be aggressive when he can, or hand into Scola or Miller. Do you know how offenses work and how each coach's style impacts how a player plays the game? In Adelman's offense, Mike Bibby had very low assist numbers.
He's higher than KD when you sort by swingmen. Actually, he is higher in Points/min, FG%, 3pt%, FT%, Assists/min, Assist ratio and fewer TO/min. He must be a better offensive player than KD.
With the same 20 mpg and 10 game played cutoff. Martin is 5th out of 40 SG in PPG. 7th in 3pt% at 41.8% (while melo is shooting it at 27.5% ) 2nd in FT% while being 3rd in FTA and 1st in FT Why pass when he's shooting like this
Which is why I think it is more useful to rank them by assist-per-minute or assist-rate, rather than assist-per-game. That is, if you're choosing to cite assist numbers at all. As for the Rockets offense, every player is called upon to make reads and pass to the open man. I'm not asking for Kevin to collect huge assist numbers. Assists can be a deceptive stat, anyways. But you can watch a player and gauge how good they are at seeing the floor and finding open teammates. Its not one of Martin's strengths.
Martin isn't going to shoot every time he gets the ball in his hands, nor should he. If he has daylight and he can step into a rhythm jumper, by all means fire away. He's a lights out shooter. I'm talking about situations where there is a obvious pass to be made to an open player near the basket and he doesn't see it. Morey talked about good pass/bad pass ratio before. I guarantee you that Martin does not rate well by that stat in this offense. If Martin is not shooting the ball or drawing a foul, he become a low-efficiency player.
This is what kinda bother me about martin and lowry and people will say I'm hating. Against the 4 best defensive teams the rockets have faced, chicago,charlotte, dallas and new orleans, they have both struggled from the field. Martin has shot .353,.400,.267,..417 and in all those games he scored 16,16,17,and 18 ppg. Against those same teams lowry .429,.364,429,.429 in the 1 game he didn't start, but as far as pts and asst lowry was 6pt 6ass,11.5pts 5.5asst,6.0pts 5asst,9pts 3asst. So to me and I have always maintained this, how will martin and lowry do against championship level defenses? We know against avg defenses they will light you up, but what ahppens against a good defense?
Kevin is a sound passer. He doesn't make the spectacular assist, but he will swing the ball, and we know he is NOT a chucker. That's what you need from your SG, really.