While many were hoping that Webs would finally enjoy that breakout season that has eluded him for the first 3 years of his career (not counting the missed season) it's just not happening this year. With no other available small forwards on this team, there's nobody breathing down his neck to take his position or minutes, it's basically right there for him to seize, but so far through a quarter of a season he's not just looking like old Martell, he's looking almost like rookie Martell. Personally, I think Martell suffers mostly from confidence issues and has always struggled with the yips (when his shot stops falling for a couple of quarters or games, he starts thinking too much and presses, which leads to more misses). Secondly, no matter how many jumpers he shot while sitting on a stool during his rehab, that missed year is really showing, his timing and focus seem to fluctuate wildly at both ends of the court vacillating between floating for long stretches on both ends punctuated with moments of frenetic weakside shot blocking and attempts to dribble into traffic with mixed results ... although the focus issue seemed to be a problem in his other 3 years on the court, so maybe it's not just the missed year. So what now? What do people see his future with the team being? Why is he performing so poorly? Is this between the ears, is he still rusty, is he just not very good? Is he even tradeable? And why has his poor play seemingly been off people's radar?
Agreed. I am a big Webster supporter, but so far my support has been waning because of the opportunities that he seems to be wasting. I still will give him the entire year though to prove me wrong. I do like his aggressiveness on defense. If we get Batum back, I see Webster as a role player bench guy....used with Travis (if we keep them both). If Cunningham explodes, I can see him getting the backup 3 and 4 minutes.
I'd say you've summarized the situation pretty accurately. He's always been a guy who needs to get his confidence up by hitting his first couple of jumpers and, if he doesn't, he pretty well tightens up and is close to worthless for the rest of the game. He's also suffering badly from his layoff last season. I guess this works out to be the perfect time for him in that, due to loss of players to injury, the coaching staff have no alternatives but to continue to play him. He's either going to turn into a player or be exposed as not being one. Barring a trade, I'd say that this is make or break time for Martell's basketball future.
I think some of us have stayed quietly optimistic simply because we hope that passing on Chris Paul or Deron Williams was for nothing.... but it's becoming clearer and clearer that Martell will never be consistent enough to be a starter, and he plays like shit off the bench, so what do you do?
Is there a system in which Webster would flourish? I keep thinking the Suns - lots of open threes, dunks in transition, very little need to create for oneself... I also keep dreaming that they'll give us Robin Lopez and Jared Dudley in return...
I think it's partly because he is being forced out of his role by all the injuries, and when he fails at his new role, his confidence suffers and he's not even good at his normal role. He is obviously our best perimeter defender for small forwards and big shooting guards though. He has been one of my favorite players, if not my absolute favorite, but when Batum and Outlaw are back (assuming Outlaw will still be with us..) I can't see Martell getting ANY minutes unless he becomes consistent, even if its just consistently average.
I haven't been a big fan of him for a couple of years now, so I can't say I'm really disappointed this year. As the only functional small forward still standing, though, we can't trade him. And even if we could we'd just get another mediocre player back, possibly at a position where we already have depth. He's only 23. He still has some upside. I'd be happy to see him thrown in as filler for a significant upgrade at SF, but otherwise we just have to wait.
Hasn't that pretty much always been Martell's MO? One great game or quarter every 5 or 10 games and then a lot of up and down in between.
The problem is he's a role player and a pure jump shooter. No penetration ability at all. How many players in the past have succeeded greatly with this type of game? I can't really think of any, it's definitely a power-law distribution. The ones that do become all-stars.
I'm not going to try to guess what the problem is whether it's mental or just talent. Bottom line is that this season IMO was his do or die chance to prove to me, the fans, and the Blazers he could get it done. He's clearly failing, he probably gets until Jan/Fen when Batum gets back but frankly it does not look good for him at this time.
His offensive game has definitely been inconsistent. It seems like his confidence just isn't there (it never was) so I just hope that we hit a winning streak and he starts knocking down shots...Like some of you have said, I will give it the whole year to determine whether or not he is worth keeping around for the long term. His defense has been solid this year (12.2 opponent PER @ SF and 6 @ SG). He isn't hurting the team by taking dumb shots and his guy isn't blowing past him so I can't really sit here and say he is detrimental to our success...It's just clear that if there is a move to upgrade at SF it would be worth doing.
To say he hasn't been very productive for this team thus far wouldn't be outrageous, saying he shouldn't be in the NBA is absolutely ridiculous.
Martell is a disappointment so far..again. I hold out some hope that he can recover and be consistent. I don't think it's confidence at all. I think it's that he doesn't get enough touches to get into a rhythm and he doesn't know how to maintain it otherwise. He'll never get that on this team and probably not any other team either. Maybe they just need to run the first ten plays through him to jump start him and see how he does...
