Vanderbilt Basketball: Vandy commit Kenyon Martin Jr. is going pro

He doesn’t know if he’s going overseas yet, but Vanderbilt commit Kenyon Martin Jr. has decided he will be going pro and not to Vanderbilt.

Kenyon Martin Jr. committed to Vanderbilt on May 5th and now just over a month since he has decided to explore his professional options. Martin joins five-star recruit R.J. Hampton in skipping college and going pro right out of high school.

Hampton signed with the New Zealand Breakers over signing with Kansas or Duke. Martin has decided he will look to take a similar route with bypassing college and voiding his commit to Vanderbilt.

This trend is going to continue with high-profile high school players still unable to skip college and go to the NBA right out of high school. Some of these high profile players know they are good enough to play at the professional level so why would they go to college and play for free when they can go somewhere else and get paid to play.

This is a huge loss for Vanderbilt as Jerry Stackhouse is still trying to round out his 2019 class. Last year Vanderbilt went winless in the SEC which happened for the first time since Georgia Tech did it. Vanderbilt has been on the wrong side of history in recent years with their basketball program and with Martin no longer going to Vanderbilt you can just add that to the list.

Martin is a three-star prospect from Sierra Canyon out of California and averaged 16.7 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. Martin played with Scotty Pippen Jr. at Sierra Canyon who both were committed to Vanderbilt. This move could also change Pippen’s mind and could cause major panic inside the Vanderbilt program.

For Vanderbilt’s sake, Pippen is already on campus so it might be too late for him to back out, but anything can happen.  Martin was also expected to arrive on campus this week, but he informed the Vanderbilt coaching staff he would not be coming and would be exploring his options professionally.

I don’t think this will ultimately hurt Vanderbilt or Stackhouse longterm when it comes to recruiting. If Stackhouse can sell the university, he will get his guys to Nashville. I do think if we see these guys go overseas and be successful and have a successful NBA career after this could become extremely popular in the future for more players.

Martin could come back to Vanderbilt, but after publicly announcing he wants to go pro somewhere it seems unlikely that would happen. Usually, when a player makes a decision like this, he doesn’t look back, and I don’t expect Martin to look back either. With the many opportunities for players to go pro and skip college becoming more available, it is going to be interesting how colleges try to keep these talented players.