it’s because he’s NOT Brandon or Greg. We also have Rudy now. Now, obviosly he’s not a SF, but it’s just not as devestating losing Marty right not.

Anyone that watched last nights game, and understands the doubts that surround TO are fully concerned by this injury. Travis doesn’t fit the starting unit, and is starting to look like less of a fit on any unit.

I like Martell. I do rate him one of our better players. It is too bad about his injury. I hope he gets better soon.

You going to change your signature again? It seemed to be good karma for Brandon.

It’s a good question. The press seemed more freaked out about Greg’s ankle. Maybe we’re under-reacting somewhat because we over-reacted to Brandon’s knee and Greg’s ankle? Maybe it’s an injury that needs to sink in before we can assess the impact?

Personally, I’m mildly bummed. Probably about the same I was when I heard about Channing’s surgery. I was looking forward to seeing what Martell (and Channing, for that matter) brought to the table this year. It’s the time of year when I have high hopes for every guy on the team.

thanks for the reality check.

Get well soon Martell.

and I feel ashamed.

I love me some Webster.

Well, that’s PART of it, anyway.

Trout felt like this to us before he was extended, I think.
Just knowing that Martell has no commitment to us come next year this time impacts things.

1. The Oden love-fest is in full swing
2. The Rudy love-fest is in full swing
3. The fans’ attention is on actual live gameplay
4. A slight dose of shell shock at the lack of luck our team currently has with staying healthy
5. A slight dose of relief that it didn’t happen to one of our Trifecta
6. A fear that dwelling on it will only bring bad karma
7… and this is a big one, it’s hard to feel too bad right now with all the positive momentum the team has and the gloriously deep bench to work with

Stir together in a large bowl with beaters until there are no more lumps, bake for 40 minutes at 300 F, and you have apathy about losing your starting 3.

Get better soon Martell! You are needed on that 1st unit!

As soon as I heard he was down, I thought about Rudy. More playing time for Rudy in some new ways shapes and formats. Even if we barely make the playoffs…honestly Rudy looks like the most exciting player I’ve seen in a long time. Here’s hoping he gets plenty of p.t. to make the adjustments quicker.
I don’t wish for it to be at the expense of Martell, I was looking forward to him potentially breaking out…but I guess this begins to help solve the “too deep” questions we have for the time being. But, I can’t take any more significant injuries!
Get well Marty! You’ll be welcomed back.

~Z

Until you don’t have it anymore. Martell is example #1A for those wise words.

That and he finally appears ready to show us all what he can really do with his all around game. Fortunately it won’t be to long till he’s back.

since yesterday. That injury is a big deal to me and it’s long term. We don’t have a lot of great small forwards who can fill his shoes.

The fact that the injury came along with the disappointing loss is even worse.

Any red-blooded Blazer fan hates to see a starter out, and Martell has shown us glimpses of greatness (last years streak comes to mind – 24 points alone in the 3rd against Utah?!?) but also some real shakiness at times. Simply put, he is not yet a player that contributes so much to the team that without his minutes, we are doomed.

Now, just look at what Rudy has done in the last two PRE-SEASON games…People’s hearts dropped after the sprain because Blazer fans haven’t seen so much raw talent in a NBA rookie since, well B Roy.

The other thing is, it’s only 8-10 weeks. We will likely see him back by Christmas. It’s early in the season, our bench is deep, and in some ways having him out of the lineup for the start of the season my have some unexpected benefits by increasing other players PT.

That said, can’t wait for him to be back in the line up. Hopefully a breakout year!

I don’t get the knocks on this guy. He is sooo young, and has improved his game every year, which is really all you can ask a young player. His improved rebounding and defense caught my attention late last year. I see him developing into a very good all around player, and an eventual all star….. for another team!

I think he will be a casualty of the gluttony of talent bestowed (by KP) upon this Blazers squad. I, personally, hope we can pay him and convince him to be the perimeter role player on a strong team for years to come, but I really see him being a big scorer as a first or second option on a weaker team. That’ll depend, largely, on him.

Martell Webster is dopeness. He’s not the greatest player (yet) but he’s smart and he works hard and he’s getting better. When he comes back in January, he’s going to be just the boost we need as we head into the playoff stretch.

That is to say that I compare the Martell of today to Brandon as an underclassman at UW.

And I’ve followed both of them since the beginning of their high school careers.

Some of you know that I coach football and wrestling at a rival school to both in Seattle. Martell and Brandon are both unusually bright and they are each from strong, supportive and involved families. I think that while Brandon is a bit more outgoing (are showed far less athletic promise as a high schooler) , they were very similar until one (Mama) chose college and the other didn’t. I believe that the straight path to dollars retarded Martell’s game and personal development. It exposed him the the glare of fan fickledom in a way Brandon avioded and that colors the way each is perceived now.

I was looking forward to seeing if Martell matured this season as Brandon did in his Senior year at the UW, if so, my hypothesis would be proved out and our search for the perfect SF compliment to the big one (Oden) would be over. I still am.

Now I hope his absence changes the perceived lack of value caused, in my opinion, by his unflashy game and understated of court comportment.

Get well soon Martell.

*I will quickly add that, correctly or not, words like “pinky toe” and “stress fracture” don’t cause a giant sucking sound inside me the way “knee” does. That contributes to my more temperate reaction as well.

People do love Martell. Just look at your poll resutls.

I was feeling that Martell was the one player outside of the big three that was going to make the biggest difference for us in the win and loss columns.

Lets get real, everyone of our big three demands a double team. Martell was gonna be the guy drifting out getting the pass and draining the three. A guy who wasn’t gonna get burned on D every-time, at least making the other SF work for his buckets. Who’s gonna play that role now? I hope someone steps up.

because I was numb. I was still on a high from Tuesday’s game and then this. I still have my doubts about Martell – last night when Rice said he was “playing the best basketball of his career” I thought ??? training camp & one pre-season game? He’s been so streaky that I just don’t know what to expect from him. I’m sorry he’s down but he’s not taking the season down with him.

it looks like he and Rudy have pretty great chemistry. Rudy’s passes on Tuesday seemed to inspire Martell to get moving. So I am pretty bummed that we won’t get to see them together until 2009.

we’re so much deeper this year. Portland fans seem to, for the most part, love all of our Blazers. Also, when the news came down about the injury no one knew for sure how severe it was going to be. Troutlaw is definitely a fan favorite and we all expected him to just step in and kill, but after last night its clear the we need Marty. GET WELL SOON MARTY!!!!!!

Teases us with 24 point quarters. Teases us with a solid consistent start to the year like last season. Teases us with his NBA-ready body out of high school. We want to love, but we don’t wanna get hurt.

I was a big supporter of Martell before the begining of last season, and it looks like he has arrived. No need to argue when everyone is in agreement, right? Here’s why I think we paid attention to the others but not poor Marty:
Roy is the heart
Greg is the muscle
Rudy is the looks
Channing is the cheerleader
Martell is the touch, but he hasn’t touched us yet. Not in the way that we want him to. He hasn’t delivered on that yet. But when he does, none of us will ever forget it.

Take care Marty, and don’t be touchin me like that… in public.

I was looking forward to seeing how Martell played this year. With James Jones gone and the new inside presence of Oden demanding double maybe triple teams, I thought Martell could have a great season. Plus, it’s about time for him. I’m very disapointed that he became injured. Get better A.S.A.P. Webster!

I’m just desensitized to injury. I saw Rudy get hurt last night and I just stared at the tv… not sure if it was real.

Too many hurt players. Ugh.

Has always been my favourite Blazer….I have been going to games for four years and still my favourtie moment is when he went crazy the the third quarter…..culminating it with a nice big kiss to the crowd….

As soon as he can put some pressure on the foot, but can’t start jumping or running full court yet. That would help him in at least three ways: Transition (he is very fast straight down the court), driving to the rim, and creating separation while in motion for his jump shots.

Shooting, improved defense, and it looked like from the first game finally moving without the ball. I really think this is going to be a bigger blow to the team than some people think. I really hope I am wrong but I think without someone to spread the floor (who doesn’t need the ball in their hand, i.e. Travis, Rudy, Roy) we may struggle a bit.

Last night, while making sweet monkey love to my wife, I called her “Martell.” When she asked who that was, I said it was a black girl from High School Musical. I don’t know if she can handle the truth.

We (somehow) get a get well card for Marty and send it to the Blazers front office – from all of us at BlazersEdge.

Actually, we should do the same for Blake, Frye, RLEC while we’re at it. I’m counting Roy as ‘well’ as well as Oden at this point. Same with Rudy – he’s tough.

gavin dawson somehow hacked this and voted 44 times (for the soft entry)

If his had been first, i would have freaked out. But at this point, the wheels just feel like they are coming off the bus

Look I like martell a lot more than Travis or Rudy,

1) He provides much more to our team, when Travis or Rudy is in the game they try to do there own thing, martell understands the flow of the game better than both of them put together. (I think this is a factor of both of them playing as stars, while Martell has adapted his game to be part of a team, and the others are used to having the team adapt).

2) Defensively he is our starter for a reason, look to see Roy’s production drop when he is forced to be the defender. Martell doesn’t light up the scoreboard like you would expect him to because he (like almost every other player in the league) can’t pull a Koke and be effective on the perimeter on both sides of the court. Roy isn’t, so we can’t expect Martell to be.

3) He is effective in a set-up offense. He could be more effective in a run and gun, but most athletic SF’s would be more effective in fast-breaks, however few athletic SF’s are able to go between roles as much as we need it, and Martell is able to. He knows what shots Roy can make that he can’t, he knows the shots he can make that nobody else on the team is able to, he knows at what point in a LA’s post up move to give him the ball, and he knows when to just take the ball inside and dunk on someone. In our offense, we need a brainy SF, and Martell is that guy.

4) He’s soft?? What SF in the league would you define as being not soft? They are perimeter players, their job is to fall down after getting hit and make free throws. Three’s are not doing their job if they are playing big (This doesn’t count superstar’s).

5) He didn’t live up to expectations? What kind of junk is that? We traded down, away from Deron Williams and Chris Paul. That was management’s fault. They didn’t see a distinct difference between the first 5 players, there clearly was, but we drafted him. The phrase “live up to expectations” seems like we are implying that he lied to us in some way, or that he could have become better if he had worked harder. If he didn’t live up to our expectations, our expectations were clearly wrong. Potential does not entail any sort of guarantee, just because we clearly made a decision that in hind sight was wrong, doesn’t mean that he should be disliked because of it. He is a basketball player that has adapted to fit a role that he was not drafted for, he was drafted for his shooting and athleticism, both of which he has developed to a great level (He was 37th in the league in 3 pointers made, with a lot of the players ahead of him, known for only shooting 3’s), and his role on this team is as a Defender.

6) Look, I understand that he has some issues in consistency and calling for the ball, but as a good perimeter defender, what he does is not going to show up very well on the stat sheet, and I definitely did not realize that people were not on the Webster’s side. He’s a great player that works hard to fit in our offense, and lightens the workload for Brandon and Steve, and allows them to spend their energy on the offensive side of the floor. Neither Travis nor Rudy will be able to provide this for our team.

      as Sabas would say. I’ve been pumping 3M
here for three years and this will still be his
breakout year. Patience.