Without Love, Wolves' Martin eyes leadership role

MANKATO – Now that he is once again the most notable Kevin on his team, Timberwolves veteran guard Kevin Martin vows he will become a more conscientious one this season without namesakes Durant or Love playing beside him.

Prodded by a late-night summertime phone call from team owner Glen Taylor, Martin returns at age 31 for his 11th NBA training camp claiming to be more dedicated to his craft — and maybe even to a little thing called defense — now that he enters the second season of a rich four-year contract.

He does so two years removed from his place alongside Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook on an Oklahoma City team that won 60 games and one year removed from a Wolves season that began with so many expectations and ended splintered with Kevin Love all but headed out of town.

Stripped of superstars next to him after the Wolves traded Love to Cleveland in August, Martin now once again is the only Kevin on his team.

"It does feel weird again," he said. "I've always been the second Kevin. I guess I'm back to being the first Kevin again. It definitely feels different."

Once part of serious Love trade discussions that could have sent him to Golden State in June, Martin now says it's time to step forth and stand tall as a Timberwolf by asking more of himself and his teammates.

No longer is he, in Martin's words, "riding these superstar coattails" to which he clung to in Oklahoma City, Minneapolis and, to a lesser extent, Houston before that with Kyle Lowry and Luis Scola.

"It has been good the last five years," Martin said. "Now you're in this role that you have to be that big brother. You know they're going to be looking up to you. So I can't get away with the stuff I've been getting away with the last five or six years.

"It's a new challenge, but I accept it and I'm ready for it."

He defines that "stuff" as shortcuts he allowed himself to take when he played with stars of such talent.

"I'm used to playing with a lot of veteran players that we can cut corners in camps and practices," Martin said. "It's just showing these young guys the right way: Be there for every drill and take the game very seriously. Don't just rely on our talent to get us where we want to be. In past years, we could just rely on talent. A lot of teams can't do that. We're a team that can't do that."

So Martin met at 7 a.m. Monday with teenage rookies Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine — the team's future — in the first of what he intends will be many discussions about the way things are in the NBA.

Martin mentioned the NFL's current issues — involving Baltimore's Ray Rice and the Vikings' Adrian Peterson — in that conversation.

"These guys, with their talent, can play 15-plus years in the league," Martins said, "and their ceiling is, well, they really have no ceiling. You see that. You just want to make sure they stay on that narrow path, just focus on basketball and they can have a long, successful ride … It'd be disrespect to the game if I didn't show the first stages of leadership with those two because they are so talented, and at the end of the day we have to realize they're babies."

His decision to mentor his young teammates follows Taylor's unexpected phone call in which the owner essentially asked Martin to give him, at $7 million a season, more than he did a season ago.

The Wolves need his scoring now with Love gone and with $21 million left on his contract, he's difficult to trade.

"That's when I really had to get my mind right on what kind of situation I was going to have to be in," Martin said.

"There was just something that happened around February that I couldn't put my hand on it," Martins said.

"But our team just went in totally different directions. All in all, it was a disrespect to the organization, our team and that's what we talked about."

Now he is back, promising to live up to Taylor's wishes and assert himself more as a leader and perhaps even as a scorer, even though he averaged 19.1 points a game last season.

"Maybe I have to be a little more assertive on that end, maybe how I was in Houston before I went to OKC," he said, a smile creeping across his face.

"We'll see. I feel like we have a good team where I don't have to shoot 25 times a game, but maybe 24."