The Bucks may change their starters tonight in Game 2 against the Nets and send Tim Thomas at Kenyon Martin. No matter, Martin said. Tim Thomas, Marcus Haislip, whoever, it won’t change Martin’s approach.
“Seek and destroy,” Martin said with a shrug yesterday. “No matter who they put in front of me, that is my attitude. I am going straight ahead. Either move or get run over.”
And that goes for Bucks, Pacers, Celtics, Sixers, anybody. Martin stresses it’s not a big-headed – or pig-headed – approach, it’s just a supreme confidence in his ability and his work ethic.
“I don’t think that,” Martin replied when asked if he has the feeling he can’t be stopped. “I could go out there and have a stretch of a couple of bad games. So I don’t think that. I just go out and take each game for what it is worth. When I do, I leave it in the game, try and get better each day after that. I don’t think that [other] way or you start to get big-headed.”
Martin took a second day off from practice yesterday, resting the ankle he turned in Game 1 when his inside dominance helped carry the Nets to a rousing 109-96 rout of the Bucks – oh, he’ll play tonight, he stressed. Martin scored 21 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and again reminded the NBA of the seemingly never-ending supply of always-improving talent that flows from his ultra-athletic 6-9 body.
“I don’t know if he will make All-Pro this year but Kenyon Martin is a year or two away from getting consideration for All-Pro. That is the top 15 players in basketball,” said Milwaukee coach George Karl, who feels that Martin also should get consideration for U.S. international play. “He’s done it very quickly and very impressively.”
Thomas sees Martin as an inside force. “He has one primary move and it’s a jump hook. Other than that, it’s dunks. So you want to make him shoot jump shots. If he can beat you with that . . . “
Martin, three seasons after being the No. 1 overall draft pick, is regarded as one of the league’s premier defenders. Pick a position, he has guarded it. His versatility on defense is the stuff of coaching dreams. His athleticism? Legendary. The jump shot is improving. The temperament is calmed down. Those flagrant fouls are as far removed from his reputation as the leg he broke in college is out of his immediate field of worry (“Gone. Don’t think of it at all,” he said.)
“Everywhere,” said Byron Scott when asked to point where Martin has grown. “He’s knocking down shots. His post-up game has gotten much better. His rebounding has gotten much better. Defensively he’s still one of the best in the business. Decision making.”
After two years as a teammate, Jason Kidd said “the sky’s the limit” physically but claimed Martin’s growth shows most mentally.
“To go through what he went through last year with the flagrant fouls and to grow and understand and turn it into a positive where he could have been a marked man for the rest of his career?” Kidd said. “He’s taken that and grown and matured.”
