Minnesota Sports Forum

very classy

Good guy, hasn't been the same player since Adelman was here. But as Tim said, I fully expect him to suddenly find his 3-point shot again.

The transition he needs to make is to go from a pure scorer's mentality to more of a floor-spacer mentality. He doesn't have the speed to get all the way to the basket anymore off the bounce, so he became over-reliant on taking two dribbles, then leaning into his guy as he threw up an errant shot in an attempt to draw fouls. It wasn't working anymore. A playoff team deep with talent will put him in the corners where he can keep the defense honest and make backdoor cuts when they fall asleep. And that's exactly how we should have been using him, but instead we expected him to create offense out of thin air for us.

Q12543 wrote:Good guy, hasn't been the same player since Adelman was here. But as Tim said, I fully expect him to suddenly find his 3-point shot again.

The transition he needs to make is to go from a pure scorer's mentality to more of a floor-spacer mentality. He doesn't have the speed to get all the way to the basket anymore off the bounce, so he became over-reliant on taking two dribbles, then leaning into his guy as he threw up an errant shot in an attempt to draw fouls. It wasn't working anymore. A playoff team deep with talent will put him in the corners where he can keep the defense honest and make backdoor cuts when they fall asleep. And that's exactly how we should have been using him, but instead we expected him to create offense out of thin air for us.

Don't remember, but isn't that closer to how OKC used him? With Durant and Westbrook there, I can't imagine as many opportunities to create his own shot.

Yes, very much so Abe. When he was with OKC, almost 50% of his shot attempts were 3-pointers. That's compared to only 30% in his three years with Minnesota. Also, of the 3-pointers he took, 30% of them were from the corner with OKC, compared to only 15% this year with Minnesota.

A smart team with alpha-dog scorers that already draw a lot of attention will very much look at how he was utilized in OKC. It makes even more sense now given his age. At OKC, he was probably still capable of doing more (as we saw in his first year in MIN under Adelman), but that's not the case anymore.

Martin is also a very smart cutter. He has always been good working out of the corners, either as a shooter or on backdoor cuts. Hopefully he lands somewhere that knows how to use him.

Q why are you going back to Adelman when he put up the same numbers under Flip? Also Martin as a 3 point shooter with the Wolves actually was well within his career average from 3 and even this year (he was streaky because he struggled overall) still shot a fairly respectable .369% from 3. He is one guy that didn't completely forget how to shoot 3's after coming to the Wolves. A vet team with a system will get more out of him in a role similar to OKC but he won't play as much as he did there unless there are injuries.

60WinTim wrote:Pretty classy statements from KMart about the organization:

https://twitter.com/sam_amick/status/704892468236517378

Of course, he'll probably start hitting his 3-pointers now that he is no longer in Minnesota...

As pointed out in today's Strib.....he pretty much thanked everyone on his way out except Sam Mitchell and Milt Newton. Doh!

monsterpile wrote:Q why are you going back to Adelman when he put up the same numbers under Flip? Also Martin as a 3 point shooter with the Wolves actually was well within his career average from 3 and even this year (he was streaky because he struggled overall) still shot a fairly respectable .369% from 3. He is one guy that didn't completely forget how to shoot 3's after coming to the Wolves. A vet team with a system will get more out of him in a role similar to OKC but he won't play as much as he did there unless there are injuries.

Fair point Monster. I guess I sort of discount last year because he played less than half the games and we were so miserable. But you are correct that he put up similar stats as he did under Adelman.

The reality is that Adelman, Flip, and Mitchell all used him in a role where he was asked to perform the role he played prior to his stint at OKC, which is that of an all-around scorer. He obviously reached a point this year where he simply wasn't capable of doing that anymore. While his 3-point shooting was OK, his 2-point % fell off a cliff. He took a lot of contested, off-balance shots that were just ugly.

Q12543 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Q why are you going back to Adelman when he put up the same numbers under Flip? Also Martin as a 3 point shooter with the Wolves actually was well within his career average from 3 and even this year (he was streaky because he struggled overall) still shot a fairly respectable .369% from 3. He is one guy that didn't completely forget how to shoot 3's after coming to the Wolves. A vet team with a system will get more out of him in a role similar to OKC but he won't play as much as he did there unless there are injuries.

Fair point Monster. I guess I sort of discount last year because he played less than half the games and we were so miserable. But you are correct that he put up similar stats as he did under Adelman.

The reality is that Adelman, Flip, and Mitchell all used him in a role where he was asked to perform the role he played prior to his stint at OKC, which is that of an all-around scorer. He obviously reached a point this year where he simply wasn't capable of doing that anymore. While his 3-point shooting was OK, his 2-point % fell off a cliff. He took a lot of contested, off-balance shots that were just ugly.

I think it's pretty easy to make an argument that Martin's role this year was pretty different from the previous year's under Adelman and Flip. I am not just giving Martin a pass because at times this year he really was awful but to say he just can't do what he did the previous two years doesn't quite seem fair either. I suppose I am being a little picky here because I actually think we value Martin pretty similarly.