It's funny that when you watch Martell play, his value drops. Last year his value kept rising off of his preseason performance. By the end of last season, I thought from reading this forum that Martell was going to be another Ray Allen. Oh well, back to reality.
The trouble is role-players never, ever, ever get 10 plays run for them, and I don't think he's ever shown himself to be capable of being a featured scorer (minus a few hot streaks here and there). He has one option and one option only and that is to starting hitting shots when guys kick it out to him and nobody is within five feet, if he can't do that it would be awfully hard to justify expanding his role. Furthermore, do you really want LMA and Brandon idling for the first 6 or 7 minutes of a game in an effort to try and get Martell going?
He may not be the master, but he is right, that claim was pretty ridiculous. Martell has NBA-level talent, just not starter-level consistency. He'd probably do well on a team that runs, since he can run and dunk well. Re-defining his game as a (heh) scrappy athletic wing instead of Instant Glen Rice could also be a good thing. In Nate's system, he can't do that. Also, he might not want to do that. Regardless, he has the tools to be decent. Not great, but decent.
Exactly. Unless Martell can lay claim to "Mr 3rd Quarter", he's not going to get touches in the offense. BTW, maybe the reason Oden, Roy, and LMA haven't meshed is because Oden hasn't claimed a quarter. Maybe we could make him Mr 2nd Quarter next season, since LMA is Mr 1st Quarter, and Roy is Mr 4th Quarter.
Hey, just 'cause my view (and probably most others) is that your view is ridiculous doesn't mean you gotta get snippy! Let's use some hard facts then... http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus/plusminus_sort.jsp?pcomb=1&season=22009&split=9&team=Trail%20Blazers Martell is an overall +47 on the season. Not exactly a detriment to the team, like another poster already said in this thread. His defense is good enough to warrant playing him; at least he can hold down the position. Now, based on this list, if Martell doesn't belong in the NBA, Rudy, Bayless, and Outlaw don't belong either. They have worse point differentials overall than Marty does. And isn't that what it's all about? Having more points than the other team? Now I win.
You are aware that most players that play on winning teams are going to have a + in the +/- column. So thanks for your useless stat of the day.
Plus minus is a somewhat flawed gauge of production but I can't sit here and say that I would rather have the three guard lineup in opposed to having Martell at the 3 for the majority of the game.
Yes he did. Remember the dunk on Chuck Hayes? Martell's problem has always been that he thinks to much. There are nights when he tries to be aggressive offensively early, which is good. But he'll take some wild shots. It's like he decides beforehand he's going to shoot instead of letting the game come to him. Other nights when his confidence is low, he can go a whole quarter without shooting or making an attempt to go to the basket. There has to be a happy medium, but I swear he can't find it. This does feel like Martell's make or break season. He's got a couple of months now to just go out and play. He's not going to get yanked if he makes a couple of mistakes - we don't have anybody else, and he's one of only 3 healthy guys we have that can shoot the 3 (Blake, Web, Roy - that's it) He's never had this kind of opportunity. Perhaps the proverbial light will go off and he'll put it all together. If it doesn't, he's either traded or stuck on the end of the bench next season. I know he's young, but at some point you have to admit that if this isn't the finished product - it's pretty close.
No shit...I was using it as a comparison to other guys on the team. It's worthless on a per game basis, and a decent stat overall for the season. Forget that it's a positive number...why are those four guys lower than Marty on the list?
I was going to refute you with +/- per minute, which is imho a better judge of production, but even then Marty's only behind Outlaw and Cunningham (0.168 for Outlaw, 0.094 for Dante, vs 0.090 for Martell). He's well ahead of Bayless and Rudy. With Marty being so abyssmal as a reserve, and Dante not light-years better, Marty starting is fine with me. For now.
Yeah, Webster is really disappointing me again. I had some hopes for him, though I feel he needs to be on the floor with someone who can set him up, which is either Rudy or Andre. Rudy's out and I feel like he never plays when Andre is on the floor, as he's always on the floor with Roy and Blakey. But like everyone else said, Martell has been given a chance here and has shown nothing to deserve it when we get healthy.
I was seriously thinking about this yesterday after seeing LMA's quotes about the Indy game. I think for this season, Miller needs to be Mr. 2nd Quarter, and Martell/Jerryd could take Q3, but next season, Oden needs to own the middle two quarters.
I'm not enough of a homer to say that he is good and try to twist some statistics to make my case. But I am a big enough homer to still have hope that he will become a good player one day! LOL. Go Blazers!
That was kind of my point. He has trouble maintaining consistency if he doesn't get touches and he isn't likely to get them on this team. I know people would like to blame the coach for everything but I just don't see Martell being able to fit in.
is the contest over who can misuse stats to draw a conclusion that they want? If so I agree that you win. Outlaw and Bayless have played a small fraction of the minutes that Martell has this season, so they've had significantly less opportunity to compile positive numbers in this cumulative stat. Rudy has been playing through an injury he was complaining about in the preseason. None of those three have spent a majority of their minutes playing alongside the better players on the club that have helped Portland win the point differential battle like Martell. Just for reference, here are the PERs of the same four guys... Bayless 17.9, Outlaw 15.0, Rudy 14.7, Martell 11.2... Martell's career average for PER is 11.2 as well STOMP
Pace. Portland doesn't take many shots so their are fewer to go around. Boston runs when the opportunity presents itself. Portland passes up those kinds of opportunities at an alarming rate.
If there's a silver lining about Webster's less than mediocre play is that we don't have to worry about who will get minutes at the SF position next year. If we're totally healthy next season, Webster shouldn't see playing time at all.
