Kings' Trade of Kevin Martin Looking Awful

I’ll set the bar at 450.

when Martin will miss his usual 20-40 games of the season.

W/o cynicism: Landry always was a very stable player. Last month’s slump is a consequence of the overall negative vibe in the locker room. He’ll bounce back as soon as he’ll get consistent minutes either as a starter or as a 6th player.

If we had last years version of Carl Landry, averaging 18ppg for us like he did post-trade, I still feel it would have a good trade. The problem is that Carl Landry is nowhere to be found.

He seemed to be very clear that he and Tyreke were not going to be able to play together. He said something like, “If you think he and I are each going to score 20 a game- that’s not gonna happen.”

And don’t forget this whole thing…

despite a lot of people here urging me to support it, and Karl being from my Alma Mater – I couldn’t. I just didn’t think we got enough in return etc….
That being said, KM hasn’t gotten through half of a season yet and the injury bug lurks.

Was it a few seasons of bad luck or is he fragile?

 If he continues only suiting up for only 50 games a year, well. we still didn’t get enough – but you can’t run a roster that way.
If he remains relatively healthy then we got hosed.

How our offense flows with Tyreke out the next few games. If the offense picks up and there is more passing, then we may have an entirely different view of how Carl is playing. Im not saying its Tyreke’s fault that Landry has been playing bad, just curious if we see a change in the way the team plays and specifically if guys like Carl step it up a bit.

From “After The Storm” –

The Kings – Landry for Martin is a bad deal when you look at the talent gained and lost, and it will be a bad deal until this summer, when the Kings can get frisky with their newly found cap room. At $34 million, the Kings stand to be about $18-$20 million under the cap, with 10 players under contract. Throw in $3-$4 million for the 1st and 2nd round picks, and you’re left with a couple of roster slots and about $14-$17 million. And while I agree that this money won’t lure a top flight free agent, it is more than enough money to wrangle a sign and trade with another team, or to relieve another team’s luxury tax or payroll issue. For example, Philadelphia may need to shed salary. How about an expiring Samuel Dalembert for a 2nd round pick? My point here is that this is a lot like the Artest deal – we couldn’t begin to calculate how we did on the deal based solely on the acquisition of Donté Greene (and Bobby Jackson) – we had to wait until the pick that became Omri Casspi was added to the matrix.

And 1 – While I do believe that Martin for Landry is a bad deal, it should also be noted that both players probably have roughly the same value in excess of their contracts. That is, a healthy Kevin Martin is worth a few million more than what he is making (in NBA money, anyway), and a productive big man like Landry is worth at least the MLE, which is a few million more than what he is making. From a pure asset standpoint, one could argue that this deal is almost a push right now. I won’t make that argument, but someone else could.

Well, this past summer has come and gone, so now we are waiting for the new CBA to see how this all works out. But as of today, if you were on the Martin side of the Martin/Landry trade, you would be more right than wrong at this point.

Martin being successful elsewhere doesn’t necessarily mean he would have been successful in Sacramento if he continued to stay here.

If Tyreke is out a few games, Landry should get more low post touches. I am not going to make excuses for him, because his play has really disappointed. But we don’t know for sure the extent of the back pain and the effect it has had. Landry is not a guy who is going to cry and moan when he is hurt. I respect that. But anyone who has played with a stiff back knows how it can limit mobility. And lack of mobility is going to make getting rebounds even more difficult when you are not a good rebounder to begin with.

The fact is Landry has premiere low post skills, clutch scoring history, and high level efficiency, and this ability does not just disappear. Once he regains degree of health and confidence to go with it, and is featured more in the offense, Pooh can make a difference in this regard, every Kings fan should expect a return to form. Hopefully sooner than later.

First, if Tyreke’s feet weren’t bothering him he’d be our 22 ppg SG.
Secondly, Carl reportedly didn’t go with Cuz and the coaching staff to see his brother play in Reno because he’s having back treatment, So, that might have something to due with his reduced scoring.
Third, if everyone forgetting how badly Martin was on defense? Yes, both players had warts. Martin didn’t defend and Carl didn’t rebound. But, neither was going to get an All-Star bid, no matter what the offensive numbers were.

And, while Carls rebounding hasn’t hurt the Kings all that much. I can’t say the same for Martin’s defense. Houston ranks right with the Kings as one of the top 10 worst defensive teams.

And, Martin went to a team who’s coach and system he was familiar with, while Carl and everyone else are trying to work their way into PW’s system. I’ll just have to give the trade an incomplete rating.

I’m not sure, but I think it’s questionable, especially considering that the team seems to have decided that Tyreke needs a ballhandling guard next to him. Not to mention, Martin still would’ve been one of the worst defenders on a terrible defensive team, with little hope of improvement (I still have hope for most of our young guys). If Martin was still on this team, I don’t think it would be all rainbows and gumdrops around here. We’d still be grumbling about a mismatched roster and abominable defense. I think the Landry trade made perfect sense at the time, and I think most people that liked having Kevin on our team were also excited to have Landry on our team (the value of both players is in their offensive efficiency). I don’t recall anyone predicting that Landry would end up struggling on this team.

The Martin trade happened for a lot of reasons. As with any trade, there was always a chance that we could regret it. If teams only made trades when it was absolutely a sure thing, there wouldn’t be very many trades at all. I’m not at all close to regretting this trade yet, but I was never the biggest Martin fan to begin with.

Martin an all star? I mean our team is young and struggling with our two best players being 20 and 21, but the Rockets are 9-14. No disrespect to Martin, but he’s far from an all star, he’s an efficient scorer on a sub-500 veteran team, who still plays no D and does nothing outside of score.

I will always remember him fondly for being our one bright spot during some dismal seasons, but the trade still works for us. The cap space is great, Landry will still likely be traded for another asset, the team got turned over to Reke and Martin’s departure opened up playing time for Greene & Casspi. I’d like it more if Landry was playing better, but I still like the deal for us.

Was just having this discussion with a buddy. The problem was that it became Martin’s team before we drafted Reke. With him coming in it was tough to handle for Martin. I am in the camp that thinks that they could have co-existed; however Martin had grown accustomed to being the key cog that made the offense go, and rightfully so, which made having to mesh with Reke that much more difficult.

Getting Landry was what we needed last year, a post player that we could dump it to when we needed a bucket. After watching all of the games so far this season, I do not see Landry establishing himself on the low block like he did in Houston and consistently last season. He likes to catch it around 16 feet. Sure he has a quick first step, but the D is playing that and giving him that fall away J. But that shot just isn’t falling so far this year.

Was just having this discussion with a buddy. The problem was that it became Martin’s team before we drafted Reke. With him coming in it was tough to handle for Martin. I am in the camp that thinks that they could have co-existed; however Martin had grown accustomed to being the key cog that made the offense go, and rightfully so, which made having to mesh with Reke that much more difficult.

Getting Landry was what we needed last year, a post player that we could dump it to when we needed a bucket. After watching all of the games so far this season, I do not see Landry establishing himself on the low block like he did in Houston and consistently last season. He likes to catch it around 16 feet. Sure he has a quick first step, but the D is playing that and giving him that fall away J. But that shot just isn’t falling so far this year.

It seemed like most (but certainly not all) people around here were preaching patience and a wait and see attitude to see if Kevin and Tyreke could coexist in the back court before rushing to get rid of Kevin, which I agreed with. Ironically enough, the Maloofs and/or Petrie were obviously not as patient as we were willing to be.

There’s another act to the play that needs to be played out before a final decision can be made, but as of right now, I’m leaning the KM way and not the Top Hat way.

He remains my favorite King but I’m not looking back. I’m happy he’s doing well and, though I would’ve liked the front office and coaching staff to give more time to the Reke and Speed backcourt, a move was made for many reasons. I’ll judge the move once we use the capspace.

Quick note: as it is with everything, if the Kings were winning and doing well, there would be no talk of regrets. The situation changes everything, don’t forget that.

If not to the Rockets, probably to someone else.

Do I think we could’ve gotten more? Yeah, probably. Did I think Landry was going to struggle this much? No.

I’m with section in waiting to see how the cap space is used before calling this trade a failure. Also if Martin can pull a full season off.

does anyone truly believe Tyreke and Martin could have worked well together? In theory, the two players would have been amazing together, with some big caveats attached. Both need the ball in their hands to be effective, so Tyreke would need to become a better facilitator. Both also have some defensive faults (although I believe Tyreke will improve greatly) so Martin would have needed to step up his defensive game. None of this happened, and so the trade had to happen. I would have loved to see the Kings give them some more time to gel, but I find it hard to imagine it would have worked out with what we know about Tyreke’s game. Maybe it was a trade for the wrong position; but at the time, we didn’t know that we were going to draft and trade for three big-men.

If we could have Martin back for Landry right now, we would all realize how we play better with Beno/Martin backcourt. People would want to trade Reke. Then after the next 5 years of mediocrity, we’d be like “where’s our superstar?” and realize that we need to fit guys around Reke to win a championship. Just because it’s not working yet doesn’t mean that it will never work.

No one likes a gloater, Lisa. See?

I always thought Kevin needed to bulk up some and learn how to play defense before he’d ever be considered an elite All Star type player. He’ll always be able to score and get to the FT line in bunches, but he’s a major liability on the defensive end and can’t stay healthy for 82 games (too damn frail). Would I rather have him than Landry right about now, yes! I liked the trade last year when it happened, but so far this year Carl has been a huge disappointment.

I’m looking forward to seeing who Petrie is able to pick up in a trade, and who on the team goes in the trade. Landry seems to be the most likely candidate to be moved though. I know this sounds crazy and stupid, but hypothetically, I wonder what the Kings first round draft pick in 2011 is worth to other teams.

And if this has been posted in the above advanced apologies for the redundancy, but I’m too lazy to read every comment that isn’t Pookey’s. I like Kevin Martin, but I’m not sure a shooting guard averaging 23 and 2 on a sub .500 team really qualifies as a “legit All Star Candidate.” I don’t feel that Martin is any different a player in Houston than he was in Sacramento. A good player that puts up good numbers on a bad team. Of the variety of things the Martin trade ultimately considered a referendum on I can’t convince myself, given his Houston tenure this far, that one of them is how badly the powers that be made a mistake by expediting Martin’s exit. And that has less to do with a blind faith in Petrie and more to do with a, however misguided, general lack of faith in Martin.