Kevin Martin played in the NBA for twelve years and retired.
He had the demeanor of an old cowboy sheriff: hands dangling at his waist, arms not extended, eyes without blinking, electric flint, and a verdict of life and death. The ball does not leave the waist, like a dagger and a revolver. The murder weapon is sheathed. The murderous gas overflows, only at the snap of a finger.
The sheriff fights the gun, the assassin out of the sword, only fast not broken. Take it one step at a time. Shooting, Martin picked up the ball, seemingly slow and fast: the ball was pulled to the waist, bent to the knees, the toes were off the ground, the ball was stretched in front of the face, the fingertips were swiped, and it went out.
At times, it looks like a Curry who has stretched the ball forward halfway.
Martin's move, it was a dagger, it was a revolver. Grasping the gap and defeating the enemy in a flash is his routine. It is better for an assassin to kill one person than to kill a group of people.
He averaged 20 yards per game in half of his twelve-year career. But he didn't make an All-Star once.
Kevin Martin, 201 cm, 84 kg. At the 2004 draft, his bright figure of 23 points per game in his three years of college did not attract much attention. University of Western California? There have been five NBA players in the history of the past, and together they have played eight seasons in the league, and when four of them were in the NBA, the league did not have a three-point line...
In the fall of 2007, the scout asked presumptuously, "Why didn't you choose to finish four years in college?" Kevin Martin grinned his trademark lower teeth and said, "I'm sure staying in college won't make me a better NBA player." Or learn fast in the NBA, right? ”
In the first season of his career, he averaged 2.9 points per game; in the second season, he averaged 10.8 points. Then came the start of season three: On November 2, 2006, the Kings started their new season with a losing streak — 83-92 to Wolves — and the reporter was still chasing Miller, who scored 6 points on 3-of-11 shooting, to talk about Bibby on 5-of-16 shooting. Martin, who averaged 10.8 points per game last season, scored 23 points and was silently recorded in a mezzanine of the news.
Then, by the end of November 2006, after beating the Clippers 93-80, Martin, who scored 2 points on 1-of-8 shooting, was interviewed. "I'll have to go back and re-watch this video." He said, "I'll learn something from it. The whole league took this as a small piece of news: "Someone actually stopped Kevin Martin?" This is the third time he has scored less than 20 points this season.
For bulls, 30 points. For pistons, 30 points. After 13 games, he averaged 14 shots per game, four three-pointers and seven free throws. Shooting 53 percent, three-point percentage 47 percent, and free throw percentage 91 percent.
Facing ray Allen, the league's best three-pointer, he scored 35 points on 12-of-19 shooting and 4-of-7 three-pointers. By the end of November on the Blazers' 27 points, he said, "I'm starting to notice." Martin said, "They take turns using small and big ones against me, expelling and chasing me." ”
Within a month, he became the city's chief scorer.
Moreover, he will have to bear this fate for three years.
In the fall of 2007, the world was still making fun of his shooting position — Martin's shot or Barkley's golf swing— which pose was funnier?
Timberwolves assistant coach Bob Osipka shouted out the pain of the League powers in the innings: "Obviously the Kings didn't run a tactical game for him, but he could still score. He was aggressive on the weak side, air-cut, fly-shifting and difficult to defend. ”
Timberwolves guard Buckner concluded, "If you can hit the free throw line in the first few minutes of the game, the game will be much easier. The problem is, no one can stop him from going to the free throw line — you have to pay close attention to him or he can score 40 points. ”
From 2006 to 2009, Kevin Martin averaged 20.2, 23.7 and 24.6 points per game. Since Mitchell Richmond left Sacramento, he is the only point guard for the Kings to have so disregarded opposing defenses.
In the 2008-2009 season, Kevin Martin averaged 10.3 free throw lines per game and shot a 42% three-point percentage. You can't defend him. However, during this period, the king did not achieve great results.
Because, Kevin Martin never wanted to say, he was a leader.
In the fall of 2008, he summed it up this way: "I want to be a leader. But how? I'm going to get to that by training hard and helping the young players. ”
He was silent, calm, sharp but meticulous, preferring to be a silent doer. This is one of the reasons why he is truly forgotten: he is like a skilled assassin, using a silent pistol and a thin-bladed sword every night to defeat the enemy, and then quickly leave.
When he arrived at the Rockets in 2009, Maddie left. They had some wonderful similarities: they were thin, their limbs were long, both superhuman bounces over 40 inches, they were dexterous, they were fast, and their first steps were unbelievably fast. They all have a strange sense of the ball, and they can lightly pull out the basket around the fingers and throw the light and subtle shots from all angles like the trembling of the bird feather.
However, in other ways, they are very different. Maddie's movements stretched freely, whether it was passing, breaking through, forcing jump shots, he played to the realm of Daya, raising his hands and feet to swing and fly in the clouds.
Martin is much more understated and detailed: he moves less, shoots faster, and is good at ending offenses in a narrower, more hasty way. One is the Prince of Wang Sun and the other is a secret assassin.
Martin's walking through the back door around the bottom line is a must in the world. So in the wing side of the air cut, looking at the front, suddenly in the rear, the opponent is difficult to guard. Hayes and Scola repeatedly sent out back-of-the-line crosses, and the Rockets' threat to the interior grew sharply.
Martin ball does not leave the waist, dribbling pass basically only move the forearm, pass the ball like its person, the bar is oh.
Do you think his shooting position is awkward now? In fact, this posture has been corrected. When he entered the industry in 2004, he shot like a dinosaur Turk, "crossed in front of the face". Then it was the summer of 2005, two weeks, and it was the way it is now.
Who was his best teacher?
"I learned a lot from Mobley and Christie." --2007.
A little earlier.
"Meeting Artest was my best experience and he told me he loved playing with Reggie Miller and I played like Miller."
Also in the summer of 2006, Martin painstakingly turned over a large pile of Reggie Miller's videotapes and extracted its essence.
Then, how did his ability to make free throws come out? At first, Greg Buckner said, "If your game starts with a few free throws, it will make it easier for you to get into the rhythm." ”
thereupon......
"I thought it was too few to just take 277 goals in the first two seasons, so I went to see Wade's tape again." It was his homework in the summer of 2007. "I learned Wade's kick-off after shooting fakes and the technique of attacking the basket from different angles."
This line of stabbing uses a silent pistol, learns things, and like his shot, one step breakthrough, silent, but very, very, fast.
His weird shooting posture makes it easy for him to catch free throws — Harden leans forward with his arms outstretched when he takes the position when he cheats on the free throw, and Martin's shot comes with a forward extension.
Even weirder than his shooting posture is his consciousness. His counter-attacking sense of smell and wing cuts are always cunning, and the flexibility of folding body to deceive the penalty in confrontation is a historic great. He even has two forgotten strengths: he has a fluttering first step and can easily break through the basket.
- His judgment of the passing route is superb, and it is easy to interfere with the ball path.
In fact, just a year and a half ago, he was able to average 20 points in 33 minutes per game.
Before the start of the 2014-15 season, my record:
Kevin Martin is slowly becoming that kind of player: giving you good-looking stats every night, but you don't care about efficiency; his shots are inversely proportional to his record; he's still a good player, but one day young players can replace him (even if it's not that good data) and it's a good thing for the team.
It's a bit like a high-calorie food: it's full, but it's not good for your body; one day you'll forget about him when you get used to eating vegetables and fruits and whole wheat bread, even if his taste is actually quite good...
That season, he averaged 20 points on 16 shots in 33 minutes per game. The Timberwolves are 16-66.
Then, now, he retired. Silent. He is sharp, flirtatious, charming, good at learning, reasonable in playing, able to score in various ways, but always habitually forgotten.
In a way, he's kind of like the Nuggets' old scoring wizard Inglish, a little bit like Durant, a little bit like Harden, a little bit like Penny, a little bit like — as Artest says — Reggie Miller. But that's it.
Streetball legend Goat once said, "Behind every Michael Jordan, there's a goat." We can't succeed. There's always one person who has to fail, and I'm one of them. ”
Or it could be said that behind every Durant/Harden/Miller/Inglish, there's a Kevin Martin. Quietly, with a beautiful data sheet and a shooting posture that NBA 2K can't figure out, I came and went. The yellow sand is long, and the sunset is behind it.