A Better Kevin Martin? The Sacramento Kings are not a good team. They are showing promise for sure and have a brighter future than many are giving them credit for, but the playoffs are a long shot at best.
The Kings have one "star caliber" player left in the cupboard in Kevin Martin. The knock on Kevin, besides his injuries, is that he appears to be a high volume scorer on a bad team, meaning he rarely gets credit for how good he is as a player because of how bad his team tends to be. As they say, it's easy to book major stats on a bad team.
Few players get to the foul line as frequently as Martin and as he proved earlier this week he can put up monster numbers (currently third in the league in scoring at 31.0 per game). While Kevin's box scores excite Fantasy basketball owners, Martin has a new focus this year that's not about individual accolades, but gaining or in his case re-gaining the respect of his team.
"This year, I'm just a much more driven player because of what we went through last year," Martin explained to Sam Amick of the Sacramento Bee. "It's just a different mentality. That's what happens when you go through a year like you did last year. Seventeen wins.
"I've always been driven, but it's going to be a Kevin that's aggressive from the start just to set a tone. … This year, it's just about being driven and not settling for anything."
Martin has always been one of those guys just outside the All-Star picture, mainly because he's either been hurt or his team has been so bad he is out as a coach's selection. This year's start statistically again will put him in the discussion, but for Martin that's not a goal.
"Making an All-Star Game is not going to validate my career," Martin said. "I get more from getting respect for how I go out there and play, to have the organization be proud of me as a player. I'm just worrying about wins and losses, and all that will take care of itself. I want respect from my teammates and the organization."
Kevin has been incredibly active on the defensive end of the floor this season getting several "run out" steals and says defense is where he is putting most of his focus this year.
"My trainer, David Thorpe, he doesn't even look at my points anymore," Martin said. "He's so locked in on playing defense. I'm trying to be active with steals. … That's just one of those areas I want to keep working on. I'm taking pride in that area. I'm driven in that area. It's just not putting up big numbers anymore."
So far on the season Kevin Martin is averaging 31 points, 2.2 steals, 2.8 assists and 4 rebounds per contest. Martin is 40% from the field and 45.5% from NBA three point range and 86% from the free throw line.
Are The Magic In Trouble? Earlier this week some fans questioned a comment we made about the Detroit Pistons being the Orlando Magic's arch rivals – for the record Orlando has lost 20 of the last 25 regular season meetings with the Pistons overall. The Magic have also lost nine of the last 13 matchups at home and dropped 10 of the last 10 at Detroit – the Pistons are the only team with that kind of hold on the Magic and that did not change last night when the Magic's shots stopped falling.
Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy had been warning that the day was coming when his team would not shoot 50% from the floor and 50% from three, and that day was last night when Orlando hit just 36.7% from the floor and 28% from three on the way to a 85-80 loss that did not feature Detroit starters Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince.
The Magic's bigger issues surfaced last night when both Dwight Howard and reserve center Marcin Gortat got hit with early fouls leaving Howard with just 17 minutes of game time logged. Without Howard the Magic struggled to make shots and create offense.
"We only had Dwight for 17 minutes," conceded Van Gundy. "So we couldn't go to the post. Vince was really unable to attack. He made some shots, but we were running pick-and-roll for him and he didn't take the ball to the basket a single time. I don't think he felt comfortable on that ankle."
"Jameer had a nightmare," deadpanned Van Gundy. "He couldn't dribble the ball more than two times without losing it. Our game is the ball has to move. I don't care who's in there and the ball didn't move tonight, I thought we probably took more bad shots tonight than we have in the first three games combined. I think you have to give their defense a lot of credit; a lot of credit."
Howard reinjured his sore shoulder but was able to finish the game; as long as Superman is banged up things will be harder for the Magic. Vince Carter also re-tweaked his sore ankle that caused him to miss the Raptors' game over the weekend; the ankle also wouldn't allow him to finish the game last night. With All-Star Rashard Lewis out for 6 more games due to league suspension the Magic have real concerns coming into a home game versus the Suns tonight and a rematch in Orlando with Detroit on Friday.
Dumars Denies Trade: The decision last night in Detroit to sit Tayshaun Prince who by all accounts could have played according to sources, was labeled a precautionary move related to a lower back strain according to the team. That did not stop the arena from buzzing about the possibility of a trade involving Prince and forward Jason Maxiell.
Pistons' president Joe Dumars has made no secret of the fact he'd be open to moving off one of his larger contracts if it could get him in the 2010 free agent class in a big enough way, and there is a belief that of the two monster contracts Detroit has in Richard Hamilton ($11.6 million) and Tayshaun Prince ($10.3 million) that Prince is the easiest of the two to move.
Dumars quickly shut down the notion of a trade saying the decision was about injuries, and that he had enough new faces.
The odds the Pistons open up to the idea of a deal increases if their young core continues to win without the veterans.
Its early, but success without Prince may make Dumars a little more agreeable especially if big enough ending contracts are involved.
NBA Chats: We have another full slate of NBA Chats today starting with my weekly NBA Rumors Chat at 10am EST. Everything is fair game, so get your questions in early. HOPOPSWORLD's coaching expert Mike Moreau will host his weekly chat at 12pm EST. If you want to know how things work from an X's and O's point of view, Coach Mike is your guy. HOOPSWORLD editor Jason Fleming has swapped spots this week and will host his weekly chat at 8pm EST. You can always find the next upcoming chat here: Upcoming HOOPSWORLD Chats.
