#NBA Kenyon Martin Leaving Chinese Team, But Can’t Sign With NBA Until February or March

Kenyon Martin has severed ties with the Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association, but he won’t be able to secure a FIBA letter of clearance to return to the NBA until the team’s season ends sometime in February or March, sources told Yahoo! Sports.



The regular season runs through mid-February for Xinjiang, but the Flying Tigers expect to qualify for the playoffs.

For Martin and Xinjiang, the breakup was simply a chance to end a partnership that hadn’t been productive. Martin, who turns 34 on Dec. 30, had been nothing resembling a dominant force in the CBA, averaging 14 points and seven rebounds in a league with few NBA-level big men.

After playing out his contract with the Denver Nuggets last season, Martin is an unrestricted free agent. There are NBA teams interested in him, but clearly they’ll take a close look at his knees and try to understand why he struggled to find his past explosiveness in China. Was he simply not playing hard enough, or is he not healthy?

WRITTEN BY Adrian Wojnarowski & FULL STORY HERE