When Kenyon Martin sits down to talk about his Nets days, you know you’re going to get the unfiltered truth. The former No. 1 pick recently dropped some absolute truth bombs about the championships that got away, the betrayal that led to his exit, and the infamous dust-up with Alonzo Mourning.
This is the good stuff, straight from K-Mart.
The Missing Banners: Nets Were “A Couple Moves Away”
We all know the New Jersey Nets went to back-to-back Finals but never snagged the trophy. For K-Mart, the failure wasn’t due to a lack of effort—it was a personnel issue. He’s convinced the team’s destiny was championship gold if they had just added one key player.
“We would have had a couple of championships down, no doubt,” Martin declared. “I think we were a couple moves away. I think we needed at the time, we needed a true center to deal with a lot of the likes of Shaq and them.”
And while the Nets came agonizingly close against the Spurs in 2003, K-Mart credited the Hall of Fame competition for sealing their fate: “Tim Duncan played his ass off. He made plays, he blocked; that is why he was the Finals MVP. He played his ass off. I have to take my hat off to him, he played well. He put them on his back… But we definitely had an opportunity to win that.”
The Truth About the Exit: “They Didn’t Even Call Me”
The biggest question for Nets fans will always be: Why did K-Mart leave? The narrative was that he chased money, but Martin insists the reality was management cold-shouldered him after he proved his worth.
After he played out the year and became an All-Star, K-Mart was ready for a new deal, but the new ownership, led by Bruce Ratner, killed the negotiation before it started.
“Yeah it wasn’t up to me man,” K-Mart confessed. “They didn’t offer me a contract and that is what people don’t know… They made the decision not to pay me and it’s because the new management… They didn’t even call me to offer me a contract. So I waited around and I waited around and they never called.”
It was a tough business decision, but K-Mart maintains the Nets missed a massive opportunity to pair him with their later acquisition, Vince Carter. The ultimate “what if?” has an easy answer for him. “Yes, without a doubt, without a doubt,” Martin said of a potential title. “That is a great piece. We were running, jumping, having fun, being athletic and he would fit right in with that.”
The Alonzo Mourning War of Words: “Worry About Your Own Kids”
Kenyon Martin was notorious for hating shootarounds—he never saw the point. His veteran teammate, Alonzo Mourning, a bastion of the old school, certainly did. This difference in philosophy led to one of the most quotable confrontations in recent team history.
During a practice drill, the tension boiled over. “’Zo got mad and go at me and was like: ‘why don’t you go and get your ass off the training table,’” Martin recounted.
Martin’s fiery, unforgettable response instantly defused the situation (with a little help from Aaron Williams):
“I was like: ‘who the hell you talking about brah?’ So me being who I am was like: ‘you gotta be worrying about your own mother fing kids and stop worrying about me.’ He didn’t like that too much.”*However, K-Mart did admit that he went too far and privately extended an apology. “What I had said was hurtful and so I apologized to him. That never got noted that I apologized to the man.”
