In the summer of 1998, Martell Webster, then 11 years old and more interested in baseball than basketball, started playing basketball with the Friends of Hoop AAU club in Seattle. Jim Marsh, a former college coach at Utah who played 39 games for the Trail Blazers in the 1971-72 season, was asked by John Johnson, another former Trail Blazer (1973-76), to coach the AAU team that summer. JJ Johnson wanted Marsh to coach his son, Mitch.

However, it was Mitch's best friend, a lanky kid named Webster, who caught Marsh's eye.

"I could see it from the start," Marsh recalled of his first encounter with Webster. "He had that golden stroke even back then. Since then, he has spent hours in the gym perfecting it, making his shot even better."

"Jim taught me the fundamentals of shooting -- that to be a good shooter you have to be consistent, get your mechanics down and shoot the ball the same way every time," Webster said.

Marsh would take the 12-year-old Webster out to the gym at St. Joseph school down the street from his home to practice shooting. “Shot jumpers all day,” Webster says. “Got the mechanics down. Coming off screens, dribble jump shots; I haven’t mastered it yet. I’m still trying.” Martell estimates that he's been taking 400 to 500 shots a day ever since.

The work clearly paid off for Webster. As one of the nation's most decorated high school seniors, Martell averaged 27.7 points, 10 rebounds and two assists as Seattle Prep went 19-5 last year.

He scored a season-high 46 points in a win over Eastside Catholic of Seattle and poured in 40 points with 11 rebounds in a win over Rainer Beach, earning Seattle Prep its first Metro League boys basketball title. On both of those occasions, Webster was "in the zone," so to speak, the basket to him looking more like a giant barrel rather than proverbial peach basket that James Naismith started with in inventing the game.

Portland Coach Nate McMillan has known Webster since he was 13. Webster was a teammate of McMillan’s son, Jamelle, for two summers on Jim Marsh's AAU power Friends of Hoop.

“I knew Martell was a good player,” McMillan said, “but when he went in the lottery, it surprised me. I didn’t see that coming."

Like most basketball talent scouts, McMillan never questioned Webster's reputation as a shooter. But the coach wants Martell to work more on driving to the basket instead of always settling for jumpers.

Other NBA coaches have also taken note of Webster's long range shooting ability and defenders rarely give him space beyond the three-point line, even when the ball is moving on the other side of the court.

“He has a great release,” said ex-Chicago coach Scott Skiles last season, “No question, he’s an NBA shooter. He still has a ways to go to be an NBA player. With all those kids, it takes time. But he has an NBA skill in his pocket. That’s one thing he doesn’t have to learn.”

Entering his third season with Trail Blazers, Martell has demonstrated a perimeter game that already has reached a high NBA level. That's no surprise to Webster watchers.

Since he was 11 years old and playing basketball on the playgrounds of Seattle, Martell was said to have a golden shooting stroke -- one that he has nurtured and enhanced through practice in the years that followed.

Yet on his best day -- and indeed in his fondest dreams -- nothing so far can compare with his magical night in the zone against the Utah Jazz It was an out-of-body, out-of-mind kind of moment for sure.

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