Kevin Martin: Chucker
The fact that Kevin Martin is quickly gaining star status in this league is wholly disquieting to me.
Given that the Kings have far bigger problems than Martin, perhaps this shouldn’t be the case. Given that he is sitting at second in the league in scoring with 28.2 points per game on 45.8 shooting, perhaps my problem with him isn’t all that viable.
But given that watching the man play yields that he has just one skill (a rather widely held commodity in this league at that) and plays only part of one end of the game, perhaps it very much is.
In the interest of fairness, Kevin Martin can shoot the basketball with rather high accuracy.
He doesn’t do much else.
At 6-foot-7, Martin is one of the taller two-guards in the game. However, at 185 pounds, the string bean in Sacto isn’t one of the bigger two-guards in the game. As such, his game going to the rim leaves a lot to be desired, as Martin isn’t particularly tough to nudge off course without a foul being called, and he often winds up throwing up contested off-balance shots that miss badly.
This wouldn’t be such a problem if Martin could understand his limitations and settle into role of being a shooter. However, on a team in need of all the help it can get, and for a guy trying to make a name for himself, that apparently isn’t an option. Martin tries to attack the rim far too much for his own good, and, oh yeah, he doesn’t do the whole passing thing. Sadly, I haven’t yet found a reference site that provides passes-per-touch statistics, but Martin’s ratio can’t be too high. He looks to shoot it as soon as he gets it, no matter where he is on the floor, regardless of the positioning of the defense. Despite the decent shooting and scoring numbers, the only descriptive word that comes to mind watching him on offense is chucker.
The 2.2 assists per game – clearly the lowest of anyone in the league’s top ten scorers – accentuate this point. It also helps accentuate the point that part of the reason Martin shouldn’t be considered a star in this league is that, unlike other top scorers, he doesn’t make his teammates better. LeBron and Kobe force defenses to change for them. Tracy McGrady and Melo Anthony both move the ball very well for scoring swingmen. Baron Davis can be an even better distributor than scorer when he is in the mood.
Martin doesn’t do any of that. Drawing extra defensive attention doesn’t help his teammates because Martin isn’t giving them the ball. He doesn’t spread the floor to enable easier times for the Kings’ big men. He doesn’t drive and dish with any particular noteworthiness.
This is the part of the game that Kevin Martin plays well.
Forget everything else. Just forget it. Martin doesn’t do much in the way of rebounding, and he doesn’t provide much of anything on the defense end.
He chucks.
Much ado has been made in this space about how everyone in this league wants to shoot, about how finding scoring swingmen is easy because they come a dime a dozen.
While we stand by that, sometimes this contention comes with the omission of the fact that, yes, there are several elite swingmen in this league. Those select few, however, are what they are because their respective games aren’t reduced to simply scoring. They became elite by making their game three-dimensional, by improving their teams in multiple facets of the game. For that, they are stars.
There is plenty of time left for improvement, but as of right now, Kevin Martin isn’t one of those stars.
Nor should he be considered one.
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11 Responses to “Kevin Martin: Chucker”
November 19th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Kevin Who??!
November 19th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Good article. Yup, Kevin Martin is a chucker who does with surprising accuracy and gets to the line often. At the moment, he is one dimensional. Kevin does seem like a person who will grow out of it and evolve.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Have you even watched Kevin Martin play? Your take is ridiculous. He’s one of the games most efficient scorers. He’s the anti-chucker. Compare the number of shots he takes to those players with similar numbers. Seriously, before you write, you might just consider a statistical analyis to see if the numbers match your perception. In this case, they don’t. You might also want to check out his rebounding numbers the past few games.
While you are actually looking at the numbers, you might also want to check how many FTs Kevin shoots a game. Kinda blows your “he takes to the hole too much” analysis out of the water. The guy is amazing a drawing foul call because of his aggressiveness and quickness. He can’t be guarded by one guy.
You are right about one thing: Kevin is not yet a star. He does not yet crave the big shot. (Although, he did nail a three near the end of the recent NY game.) And he often disapears for minutes at a time.
Very shoddy analysis. Watch the guy play and then do some quantitative analysis.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this blessed article, Steve. I’m so glad that you laid it all out for the Bald Fade artist formerly known as Kevan. He had my vote for MIP last year, and he was very effective at scoring the ball and carrying the burden for Sacto. But look at the Queens last year: their worst season in a long, LOOOONG time. They’re back to the Mitch Richmond/Waymond Tisdale red-white-and-blue Kings, the team that plays in a miniscule market that nobody gives a damn about. This year, they’re even worse.
Martin is padding the stats on a horrendous team. His adjusted +/- for last season was -3.04, ranking him 143rd in the league. THINK ABOUT THAT, PEOPLE!!! The Queens were outscored by about three points for every 40 minutes this clown was on the floor. The reason? This dude can’t even play a lick of defense to save his life…he’s a turnstyle for any good penetrating guard.
The ONLY PEOPLE who would think that Martin is an up-and-coming STAR are the bums who only watch Sportscenter and go off of concrete stats. “Yeah, this Kevin Martin dude, I saw him hit like four awesome three-pointers on Sportscenter last night against the Suns, cat’s averaging 20 a night. Can you say “BALLERRRR?” Yeah, THOSE are the kind of fools that believe that Kevin Martin hype.
I was telling my Cavs fans that Sasha Pavlovic will be this year’s Kevin Martin, but I might be insulting Sasha by saying that. He’s not going to get his numbers with LeBron and Z dominating the basketball, but at least the guy plays some hard-nosed defense now, something Martin knows nothing about. One-on-one between Sasha and Martin, I’d take Sasha any day. Any freaking day.
Kevin Martin sucks.
November 19th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Blu,
Thanks for taking the time to write in. Since I’d presume that it is certainly possible that you saw Tom Ziller’s response to this column over at Sactown Royalty, which addresses many of the same point you hit in on your commentary, I’ll open this discussion by presenting you with my reply to Tom over at Sactown. Thanks again for the time. -sw
TZ,
Thanks for taking the time to post the thought-out response to my initial column.
You definitely forced me to rethink part of what I said about Martin’s game. I didn’t give him enough credit in my piece regarding his ability to both shoot the ball WELL from the outside (which I know he does at 44.7 from deep) and to get to the line. I didn’t look at the FT-per-FGA stat, and I should have taken a look at that beforehand.
However, I’ll maintain that my mistake overall comes more in my terminology of Martin as a ‘chucker’ than in anything else I said. Chuckers just throw it up for the sake of it; shooters do it well. Martin is a very good shooter who does a better job than I gave him credit for of drawing fouls, but I still think his game going to the rim leaves something to be desired. He does often fail to finish well, and he does end up putting up his share of wild shots from there.
Further, while you have certainly watched him play more than I have, this was not something I wrote prior to doing that myself. I have watched Martin play several times over the past few seasons as well, and it’s from that far more than the assist numbers that I conclude that he doesn’t look to dish the ball. Maybe I’m the one who needs to watch more carefully, but I’m not ready to buy that this is the case. When I’ve watched Martin play, it has certainly appeared that he is looking to get the ball up as quickly as he can, however he can. I haven’t seen a player who makes others around him better offensively so much as one who is a talented shooter and thus far a good scorer racking up the points on a bad team.
So far as I can tell, Martin’s rebounds per game and — more importantly — his rebounds per 40 numbers fall well short of many of the league’s other top scoring swingmen. Admittedly, I am still in the midst of my first plunge into advanced stats, so despite reading the glossary at the bottom of your link there, I’m not wholly sure I follow the significance of rebound rate (if you can explain it a bit more, it would be appreciated).
Simply put, near as I can see, Martin doesn’t play defense.
Ultimately, I have watched the man play, and if there’s a true error on my part here, it’s my contention that it has to do with not going as far inside the numbers offensively as I should have on this. So far as simply watching the man play basketball is concerned, the fact to me is that he hasn’t yet developed a game worthy of the star label. He IS clearly more efficient than I credited him for, and I likely should have labeled him one-dimensional or something of that sort. Because he still has a long way to go toward making his game complete.
I’m still not fully sold on all your saying, but I’ll buy that there is far more of a middle ground than I initially portrayed in my column. Thanks for taking the time to address what I said, and thanks for keeping me honest.
-sw
November 19th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
wow. he made you look like a fool.
i love u man, but this is pretty funny.
also, screw john hollinger. he reverse engineered a draft analysis system and now he is making my main man look like an idiot. what a tool.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I appreciate your willingness to consider another point of view, Steve. Tom Ziller’s response is much better than my own.
Like I said, Kevin’s not a star, and he’s not a chucker. He’s a nice, young, efficient scorer, who is getting better at just about ever facet of his game each and every year. Who knows, maybe one day he will be an elite player. Right now, he’s just very good.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Blu,
Thanks again for taking the time to share your insight.
Ultimately, your last paragraph is far more the point I was getting at (or should have been getting at) overall. Sadly, it got lost in the fact that I didn’t initially give fair enough credit to Martin for what he CAN do offensively.
My apologies if my copied response came off the wrong way in any regard — that wasn’t meant to snub your response, but I thought that the skeletal points of Tom’s response to me and yours were very similar, such that the same commentary on my end would apply.
Considering other points of view is what this is all about for me. My goal here isn’t for everyone to think I’m right all the time, but to provoke discussion and learning about the game I (and we all) love. I’m always glad to get people thinking one way or the other, and I’m thrilled to be learning, as I certainly did to some extent in this discussion. Just hope I can provide the teaching for people every once in a while as well.
I’m enjoying this discussion with you, and here’s hoping you’re willing to keep coming back here to Taking it to the Rack for more in the future, as your thoughts are welcome anytime.
-sw
November 19th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Amar,
Much thanks for the kind words. Granted, at 28.2 ppg (2nd in basketball), I’m not ready to condemn Martin to the effect that you are. He is a young player with a lot to learn about how to make his game more complete.
I’m just not his biggest fan, and its my contention that the reasons for this are very valid. Some of them weren’t as viable I originally thought they were, but at the same time, many do stand. Glad to see you agree.
Always good to hear from you.
-sw
November 19th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
One thing I would say, and this is coming from a guy who is watching the 76ers every night, is that bad teams made you look REALLY good at what you’re good at and REALLY bad at what you’re bad at. The “middle ground” argument only works when the team is competitive. No matter how good or bad a player is, this is still a team sport. Iverson never got any love until the Sixers became good. Martin won’t either until he’s putting up these numbers for a playoff team. I think of him as a young Reggie Miller. Only better looking…
November 20th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Steve, you say that Martin’s game @ the rim leaves ” a lot to be desired.” Are you aware that ONLY LeBron is shooting more freebies than Martin per game thusfar this year?
He’s also getting nearly 5 boards a night on average from the wing. How many other 2’s in the league are getting more?
And what games are you watching that Martin is taking lots of bad shots? His FG% is down a bit this year from last…but the ONLY guy in the top 10 in scoring in the NBA taking fewer shots is RJ in New Jersey, and its less than one shot per game less. All of the other 7 guys in the top 10 below him are taking MORE shots than he is on average.
Martin is slight and needs to continue to bulk up. And yes…he’s not a great on the ball defender.
And he’s not a point guard, you’re right about that. His 2.4 APG average is decent for a guy who mainly gets his shots off screens and on the move. He’s not initiating the offense most of the time. Playing distributor is not what they ask him to do.
Seems like you have a bone to pick with Martin. But to be honest, you’re way off base here. Martin is a good young player who is still getting better. Not a star yet…but not that far away.
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