Caleb Martin
Miami Heat

Player Facts

Height: 6'5"
Weight: 205lbs.

Wingspan: 6'10"

Date of Birth: Sep. 28, 1995
College Experience: NC State (2 years); Nevada (2 years)

Selections

All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 9
Physical Strength: 6
Positional Size: 4
Positional Wingspan: 6
Paint Scoring: 7
Midrange Scoring: 4
Three-Point Scoring: 8
Dribbling: 7
Passing: 4
Perimeter Defense: 8
Interior Defense: 5
Rebounding: 6

Embed from Getty Images

JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro

> Spacing for Teammates

> Cutting Intuition

> Zippy Catch-and-Go's

> Budding Creation

> Ball Hawk

> Steal-Hunting

> Multi-Positional Man Defense

> Limited Half-Court Player

> Less-Than-Ideal Size

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

*All short clips courtesy of NF Highlights (YouTube),

*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

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STRENGTHS

Intro

Caleb Martin profiles as an athletic 3&D swingman. He plays with great intensity on both sides of the floor. The Nevada product is undersized however he compensates with upper-tier bounce and straight-line speed.

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Spacing for Teammates

The 6'5" wing has worked and worked to become a spot-up threat. Without this piece, he probably would have never developed into a firm mid-rotation piece as he has. He still carries a slight hitch in his two-motion shot but the sample size of accurate distance shooting has arrived at a point of respectability.

He now spaces the floor for his attacking mates like Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, and Tyler Herro. He was north of 40% from both above-the-break and the corners in 2021-2022.

His 2.5 2021-2022 catch-and-shoot points a contest matched Malcolm Brogdon and Tyrese Haliburton despite far fewer minutes averages. His corner clip slipped in 2022-2023 but he still hit an invaluable 39.5% of all his above-the-break chances.

Cutting Intuition

Caleb Martin is what you could consider an upper-percentile off-the-rock cutter. He'll flutter into soft spots like a Bruce Brown, making himself available to crowded teammates. Martin will just as well bolt to the rim to catch the ball in stride for a layup/dunk.

The North Carolina native is a very athletic player, even by NBA standards. He loves to sky off of one foot for violent jams. Martin has that rare combination of cutting feel and timing, coupled with straight-line explosiveness and pop at the basket.

Zippy Catch-and-Go's

Caleb Martin will run through the catch and decisively embark on a rack attack. He gets his feet moving before the ball hits his hands to fully unlock his athleticism. Without much self-creation, the undrafted forward averaged 4.9 drives per-36 in 2021-2022 with this stampeding approach. He'll also mix it up with intense offensive glass-attacking.

The way he wins at the rim is with length and great leaping ability. He will take off from further out than most players. That take-off point can throw off help defenders looking to time up their verticality.

Martin uses good body control in the air to avoid defenders. He is fearless on these attacks, however still looks to avoid contact when he can. 2021-2022 had him up over 69% on his charge circle shots. 66.3% was the figure in 2022-2023.

Budding Creation

The Nevada product even shows the outlines of a nascent off-the-dribble game. He has more juice than some other 3-and-D players such as Reggie Bullock or Jae Crowder in terms of personal shot creation. Martin can take and make the odd pull-up or step-back jumper too.

He has a sneakily shifty handle, able to make some more roundabout rim attacks rather than exclusively one-plane drives. The team can reliably toss it to him if he finds himself up against a big man out on the perimeter. He does not handle much in the pick-and-roll, but he will sometimes and it can produce results.

Ball Hawk

Martin is a high-intensity perimeter defender who looks to turn defense into offense. He plays a physical brand of basketball, even far from the hoop that can rub some opponents the wrong way. This style is what has secured him an NBA roster spot though – Caleb is unlikely to change his ways anytime soon.

He is a squarely positive defensive contributor as far as advanced metrics like defensive box plus-minus and defensive win shares go. His steals and deflection rates are real strengths as well.

Steal-Hunting

Takeaways are what Martin hunts via his ball-hawking and aggressive playing of passing lanes. He's also great at navigating ball screens and either pursuing hard or skillfully back-tapping for a calculated steal attempt.

Regardless of how it begins, Martin becomes a big threat as soon as the possession changes hands. He will run full throttle to fill the lane for his team. Caleb gets his share of poster dunks in man-advantage scenarios but can also flare out for three (71st transition percentile 2021-2022).

Martin is malleable in the actions he can handle and the player types he can guard. He was in the 83rd percentile defending handoffs and the 70th guarding P&R ball-handlers across 2021-2022. He blends strong technical skills with a high compete level to be comfortably above league-average here.

Multi-Positional Man Defense

Caleb is not the tallest guy but spends lots of time at the three and the four. This translates to a bunch of possessions against stronger/longer adversaries. He uses some sneaky strength and applies his patented intense style to remain a real disrupter against these larger player types.

Martin is nice for a coach to have because he can also move his feet exceptionally well against most backcourt players. His 6'10" wingspan also helps bother them when they stop and pop for jumpers. Across 310+ matchup minutes against guards, Caleb fared extremely well in his first Heat season.

2021-2022 saw him hold these players to 38.1% shooting from the field. What stands out, even more, is their collective inefficiency from deep – 45 of 175 from three (25.7%).

WEAKNESSES

Limited Half-Court Player

Caleb can't have all that much offense running through him. He falls much closer to the latter end of the play-starter-play finisher continuum.

This can limit his ceiling to a complementary role player. Martin's overall paint-finishing prowess is held back by a lack of reliable teardrop. He remains efficient in the paint largely because of that strong at-rim finishing but he would benefit from better floater touch.

The wing can pass within the flow of an offense but will not be cranking open advantages for his teammates with smooth deliveries. He can extra pass and has some mild drive-and-kick chops. With that being said, he is not providing many high-leverage layups nor open-corner-three playmaking.

Less-Than-Ideal Size

Martin competes but at the end of the day is under 6-foot-5 in socks. That's fine against a couple of positions but he spends an increasingly large proportion of his floor time at power forward. Bigger dudes can look to duck in or deep seal for point-blank looks (struggled mightily with post-up defense in 2022-2023).

Caleb's perimeter defense is largely watertight however he can get gamble-happy. The fast-playing Martin can lurch out for some ill-advised steal attempts. When he deflects the ball these work out wonderfully, but when he whiffs it can compromise the defense.

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Beacon Bacon

Both Caleb and his twin brother Cody Martin declared for the 2018 draft – Cody was selected in 2019 but Caleb went undrafted