Basketball
BBL Champion to Play Point for Raiders
4th September 2007
The Kularoos Plymouth Raiders have secured a late addition to their roster with the capture of BBL Championship winning point guard Anthony Martin, a move necessitated by the on-going rehabilitation required on Gavin Love's ankle injury.
The 6'1", Leeds-born, player turned out for the BiG Storage Cheshire Jets between 2004-06 and was a part of their BBL Championship winning squad in 2004/05 and also reached the BBL Championship Playoff final in the same season.
In his second campaign with the Jets he averaged 6 assists per game, ranking third in the BBL, along with 9 points a game. More than anything though, his devastating speed earned him the reputation as a player that nobody liked to guard. "He's lightning fast," said Raiders' Head Coach Gary Stronach, visibly excited by the announcement. "He can blow past defenders and he creates so many opportunities for other players and I'm really excited that he's decided to join us in Plymouth. I had to move quickly to get Anthony and it was all sorted out in just a couple of days."
Coach Stronach added, "He's a great point guard, he likes to get his teammates involved as much as he can, and his performances with Cheshire prove that he's going to be a valuable part of our success this year. It's going to enable me to mix the team up a little bit. Brody (Bishop) can play shooting guard as well as point guard, and there are times when we may even go with 3 guards and have a small and very quick team on the court. He knows what it takes to be successful in this league, helping lead Chester to the league title in 2005."
With Drew Lasker and Anthony Martin, Raiders will now have one of the quickest guard lineups in the country. "We already had a quick team, but adding Anthony to the team has made us even quicker. We're going to be hard to match up with this year, and it makes the team even deeper," said Raiders' Chief Executive Dave Briggs. "The board were excited by what they heard, and gave Gary the go-ahead to get Anthony in. It all happened very quickly at the end of last week and he only flew in on Sunday. With his pedigree and league championship experience, I guarantee that there isn't a team in the country who wouldn't be excited to have signed him."
Martin was brought up in New York where he played for Adelaide Stevenson High School, before moving to Brookhaven Junior College in Texas where he put up some great statistics - 13 points, 4 rebounds and 8 assists per game in his second year. He finished University playing for Texas Wesleyan in NCAA Division 1, before signing with Cheshire Jets and helping them record 32 wins en route to the league title in 04/05.
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