He’s Tiny but His Presence Is Huge

Jessie Martin sensed early that his son Darrick was destined to play basketball.

“When Darrick was a baby, he would sit on my lap and there was a flower pot in the corner and he would take his little ball and shoot it in the flower pot,” the senior Martin said.

“He had tremendous hand-eye coordination, and his dexterity was beyond his years. He was able to throw with either hand when he played quarterback in Pop Warner [youth football], and that threw a lot of people.”

But basketball was Martin’s first love. He ate, slept and drank basketball.

“Most kids sleep with a teddy bear, but Darrick used to cry if he didn’t have a basketball to sleep with,” said Martin’s grandmother, Katie. “He couldn’t go to bed without it.”

Said Martin: “I’d make a fuss if I didn’t have my ball. . . . Occasionally, I still keep one near when I go to sleep.”

Martin’s obsession with basketball enabled him to fulfill his dream of playing in the NBA, but it took dedication and perseverance.

Signed as a free agent by the Clippers last summer, Martin has flourished since replacing Pooh Richardson as the starting point guard, averaging 13.9 points and 5.2 assists in 26 games as a starter. The Clippers are 13-13 with Martin starting.

“If the Clippers are looking for a guy to just say, ‘I’m proud to be in your organization,’ Darrick Martin is that guy,” said Magic Johnson, who is like a big brother to Martin. “He is so proud to be a Clipper. You couldn’t find a lot of guys like that who have ever worn a Clipper uniform.

“I’m proud of him. I almost cried when he made it because I know how much he’s put into it and I know how bad he wanted it. But everything that he’s gotten, he deserves.”

Nicknamed Tiny because he’s only 5 feet 11, Martin is developing into something of a cult hero as the Clippers contend for their first playoff berth since 1993.

Martin got a new jersey recently because his old one was so big that most of his number was tucked inside his shorts. He gave the old one to Brian Rosen, the 5-year-old son of his agent, Lon.

Rosen, who also represents Johnson, had given the youngster one of Magic’s jerseys as well but his son prefers Martin’s.

“It’s too big for me now, but it ought to fit me in a year,” Brian said.

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Martin is at his best in big games.

Matched against Utah Jazz guard John Stockton, Martin scored 38 points, a personal best, in a 115-101 victory on Dec. 30 at the Sports Arena.

Former UCLA coach Jim Harrick, who had dropped Martin from the Bruin starting lineup at the start of his senior season, watched the game from a courtside seat next to Clipper owner Donald T. Sterling.

But Martin didn’t gloat.

“Long time coming,” Martin said.

Martin outplayed all-star guard Gary Payton of the Seattle SuperSonics, scoring 31 points and passing for a season-high nine assists as the Clippers handed the SuperSonics their first loss in 10 games, 102-100, on Jan. 23 at Anaheim.

And he scored five of the Clippers’ final eight points as they overcame a three-point deficit.

Payton fouled Martin as he launched a three-point shot with 16.2 seconds left, and Martin made all three free throws to end the Clippers’ five-game losing streak.

“I called him after the Seattle game and left a message on his machine telling him, ‘If you keep playing the way you’ve been playing, you’re going to make a million dollars,’ ” Johnson said. “I also call him when he has bad games.”

Johnson keeps Martin’s ego in check.

“Whenever he gets full of himself, I bring him right back to reality,” Johnson said.

“He got full of himself one day at UCLA. My [gym] team had won about eight games in a row, and he got off five or six points and we’re going to nine. He said, ‘You better check your bank account.’

“I stopped the game and said, ‘Hold up. You mean [you’re matching] your little bank account to my bank account?’ Everybody fell out laughing. I said, ‘You better shut up Darrick. Your bank account can’t even match my endorsements.’

“He came up afterward and said, ‘I’m sorry, I said the wrong thing.’ ”

In games, though, Martin doesn’t back down.

Michael Jordan tried to pick on him in a game last season.

“Michael likes to talk to you and he questioned my manhood,” Martin said. “He said something to me and I said, ‘Wait a minute, we’re men too.’ ”

The situation got hot and they had to be separated by teammates.

“I won’t start anything, but I won’t let anyone run over me,” Martin said.

And that wasn’t the first confrontation between Martin and Jordan.

Invited to play in a pickup game with Jordan and other NBA stars while Jordan was filming a movie here in 1995, Martin faked out Jordan and scored the winning shot in a game.

“I hate to lose,” Martin said. “When I was a kid, I used to cry if my dad and uncle beat me, and my grandmother used to ask them to let me win. But they said I had to learn to lose. So they’d play me like I was 17 when I was 8 or 9.”

A star at St. Anthony High in Long Beach, Martin selected UCLA over Arizona and Duke in 1988. But he tried to get out of his letter of intent after UCLA fired Walt Hazzard, who had recruited him, and hired Harrick.

“I was upset and bitter because I wanted to play for Coach Hazzard. That’s who I signed with,” Martin said. “Here I had a guy coming in who I didn’t know and who hadn’t recruited me.

“My dad and I had a meeting with Coach Harrick and [UCLA Athletic Director] Peter Dalis and Chancellor [Charles] Young. Coming out of the meeting, I was a little skeptical but I was made to feel better than I did when I went in.”

Martin would have had to sit out a year if he had gone to another school and two years if he had gone to another Pacific 10 school, so he stayed at UCLA.

“At that time, I thought I was Superman and I wanted to show that I was ready to play right away,” Martin said.

“If I had it to do it over again, I’d still go to UCLA. I had a great time there and to have a degree from UCLA is unparalleled. And I even met my girlfriend there.”

Martin dates former UCLA volleyball player Marissa Hatchett, who now plays professionally.

“She’s 6-2 and when we go out we have a no-heels rule,” Martin said.

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A starter for his first three seasons at UCLA, Martin was demoted as a senior in 1991-92 after leading the Pac-10 in assists as a junior.

“We were getting ready to run out onto the floor before our first game and I was told that I wasn’t going to start,” Martin said. “I was in shock.”

Martin didn’t protest because he didn’t want to disrupt the Bruin season, but his parents didn’t accompany him onto the court for Senior Day ceremonies before his last game as a silent protest. They were the only parents who didn’t participate in the ceremony.

“I didn’t feel that what I had given to the school I was receiving back,” Martin said.

He hoped to be drafted, and teammates Tracy Murray and Don MacLean were selected in the first round, but Martin wasn’t picked at all.

“I watched it on TV, but it got to a certain point and I just shut off the TV and went to a park and played basketball,” Martin said.

Waived by two Continental Basketball Assn. teams, Martin didn’t give up.

After being cut by the Rapid City Thrillers of the CBA, Martin tried out for Coach Henry Bibby’s Oklahoma City Cavalry.

“I was the last cut and that release made me a little more upset,” Martin said. “I think I played well enough to make it and had a great preseason.

“There’s an old saying that anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and the experiences that I’ve gone through have just made me that much a stronger person mentally and physically. It prepared me to play in the NBA, because playing in the NBA is hard. Everybody just understands the glitz and glamour, but there’s the travel and you’re expected to come out and play every night.”

After supporting himself by taking bit parts as a basketball player in commercials for a year, Martin asked Johnson if he could play on his traveling team, which included former NBA players Mike McGee, Lester Conner, Earl Cureton and Kurt Rambis.

“It was like I had 10 big brothers, all watching out for me, all knowing what my ultimate goal was,” Martin said. “It was great. It got me on the right road. Magic taught me to always be the best because the only fun you can have is when you win. You can’t settle for No. 2.

“Traveling with Magic was like traveling with the president. We always had armed security. When we went to Argentina, we had police escorts everywhere we went and they’d block off the streets.”

Johnson took Martin under his wing, making him get up early for extra practice sessions at 7 a.m.

“He’s probably glad that he’s got [Clipper Coach] Bill Fitch now because I didn’t mess around,” Johnson said. “I got on him, and I mean, got on him. I wanted to see if he really wanted it. I said, ‘OK, 7 o’clock and don’t be late!’ The guy was there. He had no problems getting up. Everything I told him to do, he did it and with enthusiasm.”

Signed by the Sioux Falls Skyforce of the CBA in 1994, Martin averaged 21 points and 7.8 assists before he was signed by the Minnesota Timberwolves in February 1995.

Released by the Timberwolves at the end of the season, Martin signed with the Vancouver Grizzlies at the start of last season. But he was traded back to Minnesota after the Timberwolves hired Flip Saunders, who had coached him in Sioux Falls.

But even though he has realized his dream of playing in the NBA, Martin hasn’t slacked off.

He worked out four times a day last summer.

After playing basketball in the morning, he went to the beach and ran sand dunes before lifting weights. He finished each day by playing basketball.

“I feel I still have to prove myself,” Martin said. “A guy that loses his hunger and desire is better off killing himself.”

Martin was happy to return home when he signed with the Clippers because he’s able to be near his family.

He often visits his grandmother’s house in Compton for lunch after practice.

“She says she has arthritis, but when Darrick comes she moves pretty good,” Martin’s father said. “She loves to cook for him.”

The oldest of four children, Martin, 25, is devoted to his brother, Andre, 24, who is autistic.

“He’s always honest and sometimes he can be brutally honest,” Martin said. “He’ll ask me, ‘Darrick, how come you didn’t make that shot? You didn’t play well.’ But he’s also one of my biggest fans.

“His bedtime is 10:30, so he doesn’t get to see many games, but he attended the Cleveland game, which started at 6, and it went into double overtime so it ended up being just like a 7:30 game. The first thing he said to me was, ‘It’s past my bedtime.’

“If I have a bad game or something, I can always look at him and think what Andre has gone through is much more than what I had to endure. He’s been blessed to come out of it perfect.”

Just like his big brother.