Kevin

Martin

He’ll make $1.8 million that year. He’s coming off a big season in his second year in the pros, averaging 10.8 PPG with 66 3-pointers. Depending on if Sacramento can re-sign Bonzi Wells, Martin could have an even larger role next year.

Martin missed all four of his 3-point attempts and we’re about ready to give up trying to figure out what Kevin McHale will do with him from night to night. The good news is that this game was out of hand for much of the night, and Martin should bounce back on Friday against the Nuggets. Martin had hit double figures in six straight games, playing heavy minutes in all of them, and we’re going to just blame this one on the lopsided score for now.

According to coach Kevin McHale, Martin is doing a “little bit better.” It’s not an encouraging sentiment ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Lakers and the missed practice is an extremely bad sign. Consider Martin very questionable, with backup Courtney Lee preparing for heavy minutes once again.

Martin didn’t practice on Monday and has missed four straight games with the injury. Courtney Lee should once again start in his place and has averaged 13.2 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 1.8 treys in 35.5 minutes over six games in that role.

Kevin Martin (shoulder) has been ruled out for his 10th straight game on Friday and Lee will remain a very viable play. C-Lee has averaged 14.2 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.4 spg and 1.6 3PMg over his last five games and should be in all but the shallowest of fantasy lineups.

Martin still hasn’t practiced or played since March 11. Complicating matters is the fact that the damage is on his shooting side and he’s not the most durable guy at 6'7/185. Backup Courtney Lee will continue to be a strong plug-n-play for the foreseeable future. He’s averaging a healthy 13.6 points, 1.7 3-pointers and 1.4 steals in his 11 starts.

There was a lot of talk about Kevin Martin (shoulder) returning soon at NBA.com and on the Lakers broadcast, but beat writer Jonathan Feigen said that Martin has yet to practice. We doubt the Rockets would just throw him back on the court cold, so we’re not going to buy those reports until we get some clarification.

We don’t just want to summarily dismiss this report since it comes with no accompaniment from the Rockets beat writing steadies, but we’re going to wait for confirmation before giving it full weight. It is time, however, to consider the possibility of life with Goran Dragic, and to a lesser extent Courtney Lee.

The Rockets are in a must-win game against one of the league’s worst teams, and if he plays he should be in most lineups after proving his value over the last few weeks. There is some risk of an in-game aggravation or an early hook if the Rockets can go up big, but after five losses in a row nobody should be counting on that.

This isn’t surprising, and we have a feeling that we’ll learn more about the whole situation once the Rockets’ season ends. Aside from conditioning issues, it’s unclear if Martin has the trust of the coaching staff and vice-versa.