Kenyon Martin Jr. (SF, HOU) - Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Pickups for Week 20

March 5, 2023

Kenyon Martin Jr. is worth considering as a fantasy basketball waiver wire pickup heading into Week 20 of the 2022-23 NBA season.

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 17% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Make it 22 starts in a row for the younger of the Kenyon Martins. KJ Martin isn't going anywhere ROS and he's now an established starter in the Rockets rotation with a lot of upside and improving by the day while getting all of coach Stephen Silas' confidence and then some.

Martin participated in the Dunk Contest, didn't do a lot then and there, but came back from the break freaking roaring like never before. So much so that in the five games he's played after the hiatus he's logged an average of 34 MPG to go with a per-game stat line reading 14-7-2-1. Uh, oh.

KJ has scored at least 14 points in each of his last five games and is coming off a dub-dub (14-13) against the Spurs on Saturday, his fifth of the season and third since he became a nightly starter. From the day in which he got the first start of his ongoing 22-game streak, Martin has averaged 28.8 FPPG and only dropped behind a score of 25 FP in a single game four times.

Although Martin is not getting even an average usage rate (around 16%), he is still hoisting 10 FGA per game as a starting wing while connecting on 56 percent of his total field-goal attempts since Jan. 13. He's also hit 16 three-point shots in the 22-game span while averaging 0.7+ 3PM a pop.

Those numbers are telling of what Martin provides on a daily basis. He's still a young, raw wing in the league but his skill set is already becoming quite easy to grasp: he's going to score a bunch from mid/close-range places while grabbing boards in bunches and dishing out the low-volume dimes.

With only 1.5 APG, the 1.2 TOPG (full-season) average is a bit damaging. That said, the 14-7 average he's kept up while starting and playing heavy minutes is something that only 26 other players in the NBA have been able to do through the full season, putting this version of KJ on par with them. Among those, Jarrett Allen and Kenyon Martin Jr. are the only players with those averages on a usage rate below 20%.

Adding the 2+ APG and 1+ SPG to the 14-7, the full 14-7-2-1 line is something at the reach of only seven men this year from the start of the season: Anthony Davis, Bam, Tatum, Embiid, Doncic, Jokic, and Zion. Martin has played at that level for more than a month now. He's barely rostered in one of every five ESPN leagues out there. Just saying.

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