Ken Jan Martin was born on December 30, 1977 in Saginaw, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati. At 2.06 meters tall and weighing 109 kilograms, Martin plays as a big forward and is known for his ability to fly well. During his time with the University of Cincinnati Wildcats, he was coached by Coach Higgins, and in his senior year, he was voted the Best Player of the Nation with an average of 18.9 points, 9.7 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game, and various awards came and went. Unfortunately, he suffered a leg fracture in this year's American League competition and missed the NCAA finals. Being elected Player of the Year in the final year of his college career but missing out on the NCAA finals is a "birth before death", otherwise, there should be a broader page on his resume.
Fans who have watched the 2002 and 03 Finals today will have this illusion: Martin spent most of his career playing for the Nets, in fact, turning over the resume, he only played 4 seasons with the Nets, but later played for the Nuggets for 7 years. The reason for this illusion is first of all because of preconceptions, and secondly because Martin left too deep an impression on fans during the Nets period, countless aerial relays, fans of the ball to the audience like a volleyball, and roar after dunking or blocking, these wonderful moments have long fixed Martin's violent image in the minds of fans, indelible. At that time, Martin was indeed the representative of a new generation of "Beast Insider".
Fans have an impression of Martin like his style of play, simple and rough. In a game in the 2006 regular season, the injured Martin sat on the bench of his team and was provoked by fans outside the back two rows, and Martin, who was in the midst of frequent injuries, rose up in anger and fought with the fan, so he was fined $15,000.
There is another example that illustrates Martin's simple and irritable personality. In the 2005-06 season, he missed 26 regular season games with tendon tendonitis in his knee, but made a comeback in time before the playoffs began. In the first half of the second game against the Clippers in the first round, he had a verbal conflict with George Karl because of the playing time, and in the second half, he gambled and refused to play, which made the old coach really embarrassed. But head coach George Carr is also known for his bad temper, and he has an indefinite ban on Martin. In the end, Martin played only two games in this year's playoffs, averaging 17.5 minutes per game. The Nuggets were also eliminated by Brand and The Cassel Clippers.
Martin had excellent athleticism, so much so that other deficiencies were somewhat masked. Although he participated in the 2000 draft with a leg injury, he was still selected by the Nets as a champion, of course, there were also factors that were in the draft that year, and the strength of the rookie candidates was generally poor, but so far, no one will classify him as a parallel importer with Orovo Candi and Kwame Brown.
The 00-01 season was Martin's rookie season, playing 68 regular season games and starting all of them, averaging 12 points, 7.4 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 1.9 assists in 33.4 minutes per game. The core figure of the Nets that season was Marbury, and in front of Marbury, who made 355 three-point shots that season, although Martin was a champion, he could only be the second person on the team. In the subsequent 01-02 season, the Nets sent Marbury away with almost the strength of the rebuild, bringing in Kidd, Kitters, Richard Jefferson and others, plus the previous Van Horn and Martin, the Nets' performance soared, from the previous season's 24-58 losses, improved to 52-30, ranked first in the East, and all the way to the Finals to meet the Lakers. The Lakers' strength on both the inside and outside is higher than the Nets, especially the unstoppable paint monster O'Neal, which makes the Nets' interior line difficult to overwhelm, and the result is swept out. But second-year Martin reached the Finals for the first time in the playoffs, facing O'Neal at the peak of his career. In addition to the second game, he played poorly, scoring only 6 points on 2-of-8 shooting, 21 points in the first game, 26 of 11 of 17 in the third game, and 35 points on 15-of-28 shooting in the fourth game. It was not easy for the young Martin to win such a stat in front of O'Neal.
Then, in the 02-03 season, the Nets hired Mutombo to supplement the interior. Martin himself is more mature, averaging a career-high of 16.7 points per game in the regular season, helping the Nets achieve a first record in the East with 49 wins and 33 losses, while also reaching the Finals for the second consecutive year. This time, the Finals are against the Spurs, a team with a duo of Duncan and David Robinson.
Having faced tougher opponents than himself in both career finals and almost the most terrifying interior opponent in history, Martin did have bad luck. This time, Martin, who relies too much on physical fitness to play, has learned Duncan's solid interior offensive footsteps, and his technically rough and easy to foul shortcomings are exposed in front of the Spurs twin towers. Martin scored 21 points, 14 points and 20 points in the first four games, and in the crucial fifth game, it was like sleepwalking, only 4 points, but there were 8 turnovers and 5 fouls, and the key moments were sidelined, so that the Nets lost the opportunity to win the game point. In the sixth game, he was still sluggish, scoring only 6 points, and the Nets had lost 2-4, once again passing the championship.
At the end of the season, the Nets sent Martin to Denver with a first-come-first-trad, a second team in his career, while the Nuggets returned with three next-round picks to the Nets. The Nets' career, though short, was Martin's peak moment, and the move to the Nuggets became a watershed moment in his career. In the Nets' four seasons, his performance has been on the rise, in terms of scoring, 12 points, 14.9 points, 16.7 points, 16.7 points, and in the Seven Seasons of the Nuggets, his scores have been 15.5 points, 12.9 points, 9.5 points, 12.4 points, 11.7 points, 11.5 points and 8.6 points. The reason why the change is so obvious is two reasons: First, although the Nuggets are also a team known for offense, the biggest difference with the Nets is that the point guard is a ring, the Nuggets do not have a passing master like Kidd to orchestrate a fast attack, and Martin's excellent physical fitness cannot be fully displayed: Secondly, in the first season of joining the Nuggets, Martin's data did not decline significantly, but in less than two years, the left and right knees were subjected to minimally invasive surgery, which led to his inability to do so, and the playing style also changed from Brutalist to floor flow, but due to general technology, Martin's transformation was not a success either.
In terms of team records, although the Nuggets are regular visitors to the Western Conference playoffs, they only have one experience in the 08-09 season to reach the Western Conference Finals, and the competition between the Western Conference giants is too cruel, and for Martin, the ease of reaching the Finals in a row is gone. In the summer of 2010, Martin, who had player options, wanted to choose to renew his contract with the team, but the Nuggets stayed away due to his age and injury. Then, when the NBA was suspended, Martin chose to come to the CBA Xinjiang team to play.
At that time, the Xinjiang team lineup was unprecedentedly strong, not only hired the national team coach Deng Huade to coach, but also foreign and internal aid talents, just the combination of the inside line Battle, Tang Zhengdong, Martin three people is enough to make the opponent's thigh cramps, coupled with the outside attack almost insoluble Dolby. In the 2011-2012 season, Xinjiang's chances of winning the championship increased sharply. Martin also said that he came here to make it difficult for his opponents, and the city needed a championship.
But Dolby was reimbursed for the injury season, Martin appeared to be unsatisfactory performance is not good, only played 12 games in the CBA, averaging 13.9 points and 9.7 rebounds per game, Xinjiang's record is a huge regression compared with the previous season, which also led to the dismissal of head coach Deng Huade. On December 21, 2011, before the match against Liaoning, Kenjan Martin proposed to terminate his contract with Xinjiang.
Martin's defeat proved that the violent flow inside line could not gain a foothold in the CBA that needed foreign aid at the end of his career, and xiaosi and Faried proved this later. Foreign aid that relies on technology, such as Morris and Scola, can slow down the effects of age and succeed.
On February 3, 2012, Ken Young Martin signed to the Los Angeles Clippers, where the Clippers offered him a mini-middle-class contract worth about $2.5 million. In the 2012-13 season, Kenjan Martin averaged 5.2 points, 4.3 rebounds and one block per game, perfectly playing the role of Griffin's stand-in and injecting hardness into the Clippers' interior line.
In the second half of the 2012-13 season, Martin came to New York, and in the 18 regular season games for the Knicks, Martin averaged 7.2 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, which not only enhanced the depth of the team's frontcourt lineup, but also his excellent defensive ability under the basket was also an important factor in the Knicks' ability to play a wave of 13 consecutive wins at the end of the season. During Tyson Chandler's absence due to a neck injury, Martin was substituted into the starting lineup. In the first two games of the Playoffs Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Pacers, Substitute Martin scored 22 points on 10-of-14 shooting.
In 2014, Martin briefly played for the Bucks. On July 3, 2015, Martin officially announced his retirement. In his 15-year NBA career, KenJan Martin played in 757 games, accumulating 9,325 points, 5,159 rebounds, and 864 blocks. In 2020, Martin's son entered the league through the draft and came to the Rockets.
Although Martin has not won a championship in his career, compared with similar strikers, there is no organization and frame skills like Griffin and Little, but his hard defense and brave style also distinguish him from Swift and Wilcox, Martin is not only a "beast", but also a tough guy!