Every NBA team’s greatest enforcer of all time

Brooklyn (New Jersey) Nets — Kenyon Martin

Before small-ball and spacing were all the rage in today’s game, to successfully be a big man in the NBA while standing at 6-foot-9 and 230 pounds in a land of 7-footers, playing more physical than everybody else was a necessity. Being an enforcer is how Kenyon Martin got by. An undersized big that was extremely athletic, K-Mart played tough and brash during the 2000s to survive and to thrive. He was kinda wild, and he knew it. Plenty would find out the hard way.

During a Nets practice in 2003, Martin and Alonzo Mourning got into a riff. Mourning was giving Martin a hard time for being out with a sprained ankle. “My ankle, my ankle,” Mourning mocked. But Martin flipped the script by mocking Mourning in return, “My kidney, my kidney.” Mourning had recently recovered from kidney disease. These guys were teammates! Imagine what he said to opponents. He once called Mark Cuban a ****** ************! Even recently, he called Kevin Garnett a “porch puppy.”