In the offseason, the Miami Heat offered forward Caleb Martin a five-year, $65 million contract extension. But instead of accepting Miami’s offer and remaining with the Heat, Martin opted to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers on a much smaller four-year, $32 million deal.
With Martin set to take on his former NBA team on Monday, he opened up on his departure from the Heat and admitted that more played into his decision to join the 76ers than mere money.
“It’s just hard to explain because there’s a lot of things that went into it,” Martin said when asked why he turned down the Heat’s offer. “Obviously, wanting to find the best situation, wanting to see what’s best for my career, what’s best for me as a player, what’s best for my growth. Not everything is just for the money. But obviously, that was a big part of it, too.”
Martin also said that if he had decided to re-sign with the Heat, he would have had to make that choice without even testing the waters in free agency first.
“It was a timing thing. That’s what it was,” Martin said. “The decision had to be made before I even had a chance to decide on anything else. That decision coming back here had to be made first without even getting a chance to go into free agency. All you can do is go based off the information that you get back and based off your representation. Whatever information you get back, you kind of make those decisions.”
Finally, despite Philadelphia’s rough start to the season — the team has a record of just 2-10 — he seems to believe that he made the right choice by spurning the Heat’s offer for a chance to play for a new team in the 76ers.
“You try to make the best decision and sometimes you don’t know how those decisions shake out or whatever until you got to go through it,” Martin continued. “Obviously, you have people in your corner and people that you listen to, and you try to make the best judgment that you can make based on the information that you have. I was confident in putting that trust in that and believing the right decision would be made. Ultimately, I think I’m where I’m supposed to be. I think things happen for a reason.”
Martin has been a consistent member of the 76ers’ starting five this season, as he has started 11 of the 12 games he’s appeared in to this point. He’s also posting career-highs in points (10.9), rebounds (5.7), assists (2.7) and steals (1.2) per contest in his first season in Philadelphia.
While there are plenty of positive takeaways to be gleaned from Martin’s play with the 76ers, he isn’t shooting the ball with great efficiency. He is shooting just 43.1 percent from the field and 32.4 percent from 3-point range, the latter being the second-worst 3-point percentage of his pro career.
The 76ers and Heat head into Monday night’s matchup as two teams who are in desperate need of a win. Philadelphia is on a three-game losing streak and owns the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference, while Miami is below the .500 mark at 5-7 and lost its most recent game on Sunday night against the Indiana Pacers.
Perhaps Martin will rebound from a three-point performance against the Orlando Magic on Nov. 15 when he faces off against Erik Spoelstra, Bam Adebayo and his former squad.