Webster shows great promise

New Blazer’s shooting, maturity shine during summer league play

By Kerry Eggers

The Portland Tribune, Jul 19, 2005, Updated Oct 30, 2009

LAS VEGAS Ñ Pardon the mess, Martell Webster apologizes, as he ushers a reporter into his summer-league room at New York-New York Hotel & Casino.

This isn’t the underwear-on-the-floor, potato chip-and-candy-wrappers-on-the-bed scene of the typical teen. Bags and bags of Adidas gear fill the floor and extra bed, remnants of a visit to a shop across the street.

Webster didn’t spend a cent, either. The Trail Blazers’ prize prodigy signed a four-year, $1.6 million endorsement contract on draft day, joining teammate Sebastian Telfair in the Adidas stable.

“Got some shoes, a couple of outfits É some good stuff,” he says, plopping down on a bed.

Fun? Kid-in-a-candy-store exciting?

“Definitely,” he nods, smiling. “It’s not even about the money. It’s what you get when you work your butt off and it pays off and you feel proud of yourself.

“But at the same time, you can’t stop there. You gotta keep going. If you’re a successful person, you want more success, so you have to push yourself past the limit.”

Webster’s level of success thus far is relative: He won’t even turn 19 until December. But this young man is headed for greatness unless a whole lot of people are wrong.

Portland chose the 6-6, 230-pound shooting guard out of Seattle Prep with the sixth pick in the June 28 draft. General Manager John Nash, in the last year of his own contract, is staking much of his future with the Blazers on the shoulders of the youngster with prodigious scoring ability, an uncanny long-range shooting stroke and a made-for-NBA body.

Webster showed off his touch from the perimeter for Portland’s summer-league team, wowing observers with a sensational 21-point opening performance and knocking down 5 of 11 3-pointers in the first three games.

“He has a great release,” Chicago coach Scott Skiles says. “No question, he’s an NBA shooter. He still has a ways to go to be an NBA player. With all those kids, it takes time. But he has an NBA skill in his pocket. That’s one thing he doesn’t have to learn.”

Webster also had a 4-for-15 shooting performance against Dallas that offered perspective. Some days, little will go right.

“Everybody has slumps,” he asserts. “What matters is how you respond. I know I can develop myself to become a really good NBA player.”

Few question Webster’s shot. But coach Nate McMillan wants the rookie to work on driving to the basket instead of always settling for jumpers.

Then there is defense. In a game against Denver, the Blazers were in full-court pressure mode and Webster was not. “Get up, Martell, get up!” screamed summer-league coach Bill Bayno.

“Defensively is where you decide how much a guy will develop or what position he may play,” McMillan says. “If you can’t chase Ray Allen or Kobe Bryant or Manu Ginobili, then you’re not a (shooting) guard.”

Webster claims his coaches won’t have to worry about his defensive effort.

“Defense isn’t hard,” he says. “It’s easy when you think about it. If you dedicate yourself to defense, you’re not going to have a problem. You can have an off shooting night, but you should never have an off defensive night. It’s one thing that has to be there. It has to be clicking.”

Has ties to McMillan

Webster was thrilled when he was chosen by Portland, a hop, skip and jump from the Seattle home of his great-aunt, Beulah Walker. He felt even better when McMillan, late of the Sonics, was named as the Blazer coach. Webster was a teammate of McMillan’s son, Jamelle, for two summers on the AAU power Friends of Hoop.

“I feel even more at home with Nate in Portland,” Webster says. “I’ve talked to Nate a lot. Me playing for him feels great. I’m glad he took the job. I’m looking forward to winning some games with him.”

Webster missed most of his junior season at Seattle Prep with a knee injury. When he came back, “I was pretty heavy and still lifting weights,” he recalls. “Nate said the best thing to do was to stop lifting and work at getting light on your feet through rehab. Take it slow; it will come back to you. It was some key advice.”

McMillan has known Webster since he was 13. Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. The draft results surprised the coach.

“I knew Martell was a good player, but É ,” McMillan says. “When he went in the lottery, it surprised me. I didn’t see that coming. I think I may even have told him to go to school.”

Webster signed with the University of Washington but decided this spring to go pro.

“Nate never told me I should go to college,” he says. “He said make a decision based on how you feel, not based on what everybody else says. I wasn’t going to throw away what he said. I absorbed it and thought about it. I didn’t make the decision on what my family thought. I listened to them, but I made that decision myself to put my name in for the draft.”

Credit goes to ‘Grandma’

When Webster speaks of family, he means an extended group that begins with Walker, 82, his caretaker and guardian since his mother left, never to return, when he was 4. She is suspected to be a victim of the Green River killer, though her body was never found.

Webster never knew his father, who called out of the blue a month ago. “Haven’t talked to him since,” he says. There will be no relationship, he insists. Beulah Ñ he calls her “Grandma” Ñ is all the parent he needs at this stage of his life.

“She’s been my mother and father figure growing up,” he says. “Taught me right from wrong, how to act, manners É her morals have been transferred to me. I feed off those to this day. She’s a queen. We developed a chemistry, a bonding that cannot be broken, ever.”

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