<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The sure sign of trouble rocking the Nuggets' world is a diamond. Kenyon Martin hates wearing that sparkling stud in his ear to practice. The jewelry is a dead giveaway his knee hurts worse than anyone in Denver wants to admit. What good is a power forward without his power? "I'm becoming a jump-shooter. I don't like it. But that's what I have to do right now just to get through games," Martin said Tuesday, after being forced to skip practice and rest his aching knee only one week into the grind of a long NBA season. "I'm not a finesse player, and I never will be. But that's the way I have to play right now." The frustrated man who vows to pull on a Nuggets uniform and be in the starting lineup tonight is a basketball warrior, but he's not the K-Mart who Denver spent more than $90 million and three future first-round draft picks to acquire a year ago. When will that slam-dunking, jaw-dropping, totally intimidating K-Mart show up for the Nuggets? "I don't know," said Martin, his admission both blunt and disconcerting. "I thought my knee would be fine right now. But I was wrong." Offseason knee surgery has been unable to fix what's wrong with Martin, whose athleticism once punched his ticket to the All-Star Game as a member of the New Jersey Nets. The lofty expectation for Denver to win a division title for the first time since 1988 seems beyond the Nuggets' reach if Martin is unable to jump. Coach George Karl has openly questioned the 27-year-old veteran's conditioning, puzzling because K-Mart's work ethic is beyond reproach. The lone persistent doubt about Martin has been health, from the time he broke his leg as a senior at Cincinnati. Chronic knee soreness not only grounded Martin's high-flying, backboard-swaying act throughout much of his first season with the Nuggets, he admitted the physical limitations brought him down mentally during the playoffs, a trying time when job anxiety was compounded by concern for the premature birth of a child. </div> Source
Damn, I was hoping that his knee was going to be alright this year. If it continues, should he have surgery know so that he can be fully fit for the play-offs? Or should he just delay that until "summer"?
