Cartier Martin is the happiest man in the world
December 2nd, 2009
Last year, former Kansas State forward Cartier Martin started out in the D-League before earning an early call-up to the Charlotte Bobcats. He didn’t play a whole lot, and when he did it’s mainly because Larry Brown was using him as a defensive specialist (including occasionally guarding the point guard before Dontell Jefferson arrived), yet he spent the entire season with the team anyway.
This summer, he signed with Benetton Treviso in Italy, a team that started the year in the EuroLeague. His teammates there include sure-fire lottery pick Donatas Motiejunas, as well as Gary Neal, Judson Wallace, Sandro Nicevic and Daniel Hackett. It was a decent team. However, from day one, Cartier Martin seemed unhappy. And he chose to document that unhappiness on Twitter.
Despite his account having the tag line of “I’m out here grindin and workin hard,” Cartier never settled in Italy, and seemed to hate the place. He documented that hate with tweets such as:
“Not as good as I thought.”
“Chilliin in this terrible hotel somewhere in Italy! How are we one of the top teams in Italy and we stay in hotels like this…TERRIBLE!”
“Man it’s time to just say f*** it and shoot that bitch every time I touch it.”
“it look like it’s trashy out here”
“Man some things just aren’t for certain ppl. That’s how I’m feelin right now!”
“Man I can’t even tell you how I really feel bout it on here. I need to be there tho.”
“I’m not passing it all when I touch it…I’m putting it up everytime.”
“I ain’t doin nothing out here tho…I barely even play sometimes. Its cool tho..long as I get that bread.”
“In weak ass Naples, Italy! I’m so ready to…..”
…….as well as other, slightly more woe-is-me ones that seem to have been deleted. Probably best.
(His payoff tweet of “headed back home. I hate to say bye” seems kind of out of place after all that went before it.)
Perhaps mercifully, Martin left Benetton this week and returned to America. He is now a likely candidate to return to the D-League and look for another NBA call-up. Despite the pay decrease and the inferior standard of basketball on offer, Martin seems to really, really, REALLY want to play more games and less practices in accordance with American style, seemingly unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the European style of basketball that could mean only 25 minutes of playing time in an entire week. He’d rather be happy than rich.
And that’s what it’s all about, really.
