Over the course of his 15-year NBA career, Kenyon Martin was never one to bite his tongue.
And the same could be said about K-Mart’s post-playing career.
Recently, Martin has been a regular guest on Underdog’s daily Gil’s Arena show, which is hosted by former NBA All-Star point guard Gilbert Arenas. And when it came to the their discussion of ESPN’s recent rankings of the NBA’s top 100 players, the No. 1 pick of the 2000 draft didn’t hold back. (Language warning.)
“What the **** makes them analysts? Or expert analysts at that?” Martin asked. “‘Cause you watch the ****ing game? What the **** makes you an expert on anything because you — nah. I’m glad [Kyrie Irving] said something. Because that list is horse****. ESPN, listen: that list is bull**** man.”
While the initial discussion revolved around Irving being ranked No. 34 and the polarizing point guard’s own ire toward analysts, Martin was especially indignant that Russell Westbrook ranked 94th. Making matters worse for Martin: the 2017 NBA MVP ranked well below rookies Victor Wembanyama (No. 47) and Scoot Henderson (No. 78).
“You’ve got two people on the list that haven’t played one ****ing NBA minute. How the **** are they better than Russ?” Martin said. “Are you ****ing me? Come on man, let’s stop this ****ing madness, man.”
“So his Summer League and his preseason was better than Russ…” Arenas replied.
“His ****ing career,” Martin interjected. “Like, get the **** out of here, man. Like you ****ing idiots over there doing this bull****, man. Y’all wanna put this bull**** out here, show your face.”
You can watch the segment in the video player below. As you can tell, some (most?) of the language is not appropriate for kids or work settings.
For what it’s worth, the list is meant to predict the best players for the upcoming 2023-24 NBA season, a notion that Martin said he didn’t care about when confronted with it. It is worth noting that many of the voters from ESPN’s panel of 150 reporters, analysts and producers are identified, although their individual ballots aren’t revealed.
Beyond that, this is exactly the type of reaction that these preseason lists — which don’t actually mean anything other than providing preseason content — exist to elicit. People read such lists to see where their favorite players are ranked and which assessments they agree and disagree with.
While I disagree with much of what Martin is saying — both about the list itself and his take on non-players being capable of being analysts — that could also be my own biases as a non-former NBA player. Nevertheless, it was interesting (and entertaining) to hear Martin’s, as well as Arenas and panelist Rashad McCants’ perspective on the matter.
For anybody interested in Gil’s Arena, this feels like a good sample of the type of content you can expect from the show. In addition to providing a platform to the type of personalities you wouldn’t expect to see on a traditional network’s basketball show, the conversations on the show feel authentic and like what you might expect it sounds like when former players are talking amongst themselves.
