The San Antonio Spurs have signed guard Kevin Martin, the team announced Wednesday. To make room for him, they waived forward Rasual Butler.
This move has been in the works for a while, and it gives San Antonio more firepower. The Spurs didn't need to add another veteran shooter like Martin -- nor did they have to add point guard Andre Miller -- but this is a nice luxury for a championship contender.
Martin, 33, has been under the radar as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves for the last two and a half seasons, but his ability to score hasn't gone anywhere. In 2012-13, as the sixth man for the Oklahoma City Thunder, he made 42.6 percent of his 3-pointers. In the Spurs' system, he should get lots of open looks and be able to do something similar.
The question here is how many minutes Martin will play. Teams generally don't bring two scoring shooting guards like him and Manu Ginobili off the bench, but presumably they will both be in the rotation, as was the case with Ginobili and Marco Belinelli. Butler, on the other hand, took DNP-CDs regularly.
San Antonio is 54-10, three games back of the Golden State Warriors for the top spot in the West. Adding Martin doesn't necessarily tilt the scales in a potential Warriors-Spurs matchup, but depth matters.
