Sounds like he is going through some personal issues according to CJ Bruton. Thats why he has been playing up in Brisbane.

I just dont see how personal issues could make someone hop in a a car or plane and go down to Sydney and target out the Lindt cafe of all places.

Beast Mode?

THankyou for the Clarification. Living in Perth as I do, we dont experience the 'live in Perth, play in Adelaide' effect too much

Moronic disgusting behaviour. Poor officer broken jaw damnnnnn!

Wow! I am shocked.
Firstly shocked the crime happened in the 1st place and now more shocked knowing it's a baller.

Let's hope Luke gets his life sorted if the personal issues are taking its toll

Hopefully the dude can get his life back on track sooner rather than later.
I was about to post lucky it was just some broken windows at a cafe until I read that he had resisted arrest and assaulted one of the arresting police officers possibly breaking his jaw.
The guy must have some pretty major shit going on in his life to just flip the switch and go off the deep end like this. Hopefully he gets the help he needs and the police officer's jaw heals up quickly and he can get back to work without any lasting effects.

The NZNBL Southland Sharks former and current players don't have a very good track record off the court do they?

http://www.basketball.net.au/statement-regards-luke-martin/

Clearly that the cafe has a strong symbolic meaning beyond being just another cafe. No one is saying this is wose than the seige...

I think a lot of people on here would of had their own demons in the past and done things that are totally stupid. Not condoning what he did but it seems totally out of character for him. Let's hope he gets the help he needs and can put this in the past.

On a lighter note, suprised no one here has made a joke bout him learning thug tactics from his time in Perth lol

What is going on with him?? Bizzare behaviour and facing prison time. Thought he was a nice guy. What religion is he if any?

Saddened to hear about this appears like it is out of character.

Sounds completely idiotic to me. Looks like someones been smoking ice!

A rock through the lindt cafe, religion or extremist views need to at least be questioned.

A rock through the lindt cafe, religion or extremist views need to at least be questioned.

Good to see CJ giving him a hand in tough times but...
CJ, 34 years old is not a kid.
The transition from pro basketball and celebrity status is proving to have a lot of impossible hurdles for some. Clubs need to look a little more at what their players are planning for life after BB. They never give it a glance.

He is 34 years old. That is pathetic for his age let alone if a 16 year old did it.

He has always been a backup journey man, why did he not prepare for life after the sport rather than chase seabl contracts?

SEABL are having a week off. Most players have gone home. Not easy to prepare for afters. NBL is all time consuming for little pay for most players. One season should have told them it 'aint what you dream of or hope for. 'Aint gonna happen. Check out the number of guys who have had to give up studying altho they are supposed to be encouraged and allowed time off.

it would be easier to understand if it was a spur of the moment act, but it wasnt. He went there with bags of rocks on what looked like a trolley.

When caught he was allegedly in possesion of another bag of rocks WTF!!

I will save most of my sympathy for the staff and customers in the cafe who must have been thinking "what the hell is happening now?".

I also offer my sympathy to the injured officer, not the offender!! What you guys smoking...

I saw him earlier in the day (before he went on his crazed escapade) at the PCYC basketball in Sydney when I went down for my lunchtime shoot around.

Recognised him from when I played against him in the NBL in NZ.

Said hello and asked if he wanted to play one on one but he was zooted! Straight gone. He gave me thousand yard stare and said 'na bro' looking right through me with a lunatic smile on his face.

He had his car parked in the kids playground right next to the court playing the radio (could have put on a playlist at least) and was smoking mad ciggies.

I automatically thought:

A. This guy is not very friendly...
B. This guy is off the planet...
C. This guy is dangerous...

I firstly feel for the officer he injured but secondly for him too...

Clearly old mate didn't make provisions for life after basketball...

Lets wait and see but mental illness looks unlikely and a cop out excuse. Drugs and family breakdown / unemployment appears the issue.

He was on the wildcats roster only months ago!! He has fallen quickly since then..

That telegraph article mentions no mental health issues what so ever..he could be facing serious prison time facing 6 charges.

Assault on officer
70km in 50 zone
driving wrong side of road
running red lights
High level vandalism
Police car egging

Why can't everyone take a deep breath for a minute and wait for all the facts to come out. Luckily lynch mobs died out years ago.
Yes the facts appear to be he threw rocks at the cafe and assaulted police for which he needs to be punished. He's got a week in gaol for that for starters. Anyone here spend time inside, it's not very nice as opposed to what a lot of people think.
If it's drugs, hopefully if he does community service it will prevent at least one other young person falling prey to whatever he might have been on.
If it's mental health it's like telling a baller to play with a broken leg, they need help and recovery.
And at the end of the day let's be grateful all he threw at the cafe was rocks, look at the result the last time a disturbed person went there.

Wow. 70 km in a 50 zone. If it wasn't for this one maybe he would have made bail!

Everyone must all be lined up for saint hood on this site. There are tons of people amongst us living with non diagnosed mental illnesses and then there are people who just made some very poor decisions when they were at rock bottom. Neither deserves to be cast aside or treated like shit for one mistake, if he was a repeat offender you could cast your judgement but by all accounts he has lived the past 34 years without issue and deserves to be treated as such.

ah anon, unable to put an identity to a post nor actually read and process another persons opinion on the Internet let alone contribute anything worth while

Do nsw prisons have bball courts? Hope he can continue to train in there and perhaps get a waratah league gig upon release given his lack of formal skills or education.

He has a NZ father and will no doubt be welcome to play in the NZNBL after serving what ever punishment is deemed appropriate

What was he posting on instagram??

What was he posting on instagram??

OMG #531302 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA POST OF THE YEAR!

Throwing rocks is for 12 year olds not at 34 lol.

In all seriousness following the NBL for so long I can honestly say I've never seen this guy smile, came across as the ultimate passive aggressive type. Did he finally explode because his career is over?

Also why play state league interstate at 30+ years of age if you aren't being paid enough to survive if at all, time to realise it's time to get a real job me thinks.

What happened to the Perth Wildcats "character matrix" that Marvin always talks about players fitting whenever we sign someone? Looks like this was not only a muggish on-court signing, but off-court also. Will be interesting to see how the Wildcats bounce back with their recruiting campaign for this season given how they missed on most last year (Daniels, Ross, L. Martin).

My thread I started today regarding Luke Lindt Cafe Martin, for some reason got deleted.

This needs to be taken seriously - by whom I don't know.

4 years on and no improvement. He clearly needs help.

To put all this into context: In 2015, he was charged with assaulting two police officers, resisting arrest, intentionally destroying property and damaging police property.

Source https://www.sbs.com.au/news/ex-nbl-player-threw-rocks-eggs-punch.

Maybe this isn't basketball related but what about our duty of care as human beings? The signs are clearly there that he isn't well - what if he does something drastic again and hurts himself or others? Do we wait until it's too late?

Just last week, a Sydney man, Daniel King in his 30s, shot up 2 police stations and effectively ended his own life in the process. Must we wait until it gets to that?

Martin's IG handle is lmartin_81. He has it set to private but essentially, every second day, when he's "hey world I want attention" mode, he sets it to public.

12 of his 267 followers are ex NBL players.

It doesn't take a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology to decipher his rants or to conclude that he's in dire need of assistance.

He basically oscillates between manic and depressed as below:

When manic:

-100 posts per day

-Reminiscing about how "awesome" a basketball prospect he was. Claims such as "LA Clippers were interested in me in '07 but I wasn't feeling it"; "Scouts said I was basically TJ Ford without the vertical"; claims he's developing an app with Huawei which will change the world; claims he's training as a boxer and will qualify for the 2020 Olympics (has never boxed at any level; 2020 team has been picked).

-Even calls out ex NBL players "dissing" them and their lack of game. Notably to Patty Mills just pre World Cup, a photo of them in the NBL "St Mary's, please. You ain't got no handle. Tried to check me at the cage and I gave you 8 in 8 minutes. St Mary's pfft, I almost went to Georgetown".

When depressed:

-100 posts per day

-of his son who he has no access to see
-playing pokies; snapshot of his bank balance depicting $1.77, tagging NBL players asking for money
-videos of him self starkers in presumably his parent's house, punching walls
-multiple "call outs" to Larry Kestelman, calling him a homophobic slur repeatedly asking to be "unblocked from the NBL page"


June 2019, states he had an "incident" at a pub where he was "tackled on concrete WWE style by a 110kg security guard" whilst simply "minding my own business". Follows this up with 40-50 posts of him out and about his local area with a bandage around his head and/or bleeding profusely. Tags various media outlets saying "can't someone help me, I can't even get a ride home, my mum's at work".

Goes on to post text messages from police asking that he drop in at the station, captions it "why would I bother" etc and justifies his hitting a cop in 2015, "bruh I didn't even hit you full tilt and I broke your jaw".

Sidenote: I saw this coming - I am based not far from this dude's local and I either see him around the area or hear from others who know who he is. I flagged his social media presence and my concerns, some 2 months before the above pub incident to:

Police - "what do you want us to do, come around his house and say don't post crazy stuff? Get out of here kid".

NBL/current players/past teams he's played for - to my knowledge they "tried" to offer assistance but he's refused.

One of his best postings, justifying why he refuses medication is..."acne is a side effect of mental health meds. I'm not tryna have no acne".

Classy guy obviously but the fact remains he needs help and shouldn't be allowed to be a pest and/or a very likely threat to harm himself or others.

I understand the league owes him nothing - but seriously, if he does do the unthinkable, how would anyone justify doing nothing given that the signs are clearly there...

At first I held strong concerns for this guy's well being, and in some ways I still do, but given how it seems like he's such a massive pain, my tolerance has decreased. But why should the general public or god forbid a police officer potentially be injured if this dude's head isn't on straight?

I get this isn't actually NBL related. But the league is thriving in almost every aspect. Would be nice to hear a good outcome to this as well.

Peace.

That's very sad to read. I remember him making the news for breaking that policeman's jaw but he seems in dire straits now. As he's not taking his meds a friend or family member needs to take him to the hospital where they will force him to take them and likely keep him under supervision for awhile.

Yeah that won't happen.

I've kept tabs the past 4 years (was always a fan of his game) and he seems unbearable to help. There's only so much one human can do if someone flat out refuses to take steps towards a better life.

I don't have the answers - I just want to see the guy make some semblance of improvement and live life. At 38, there's plenty of actual living still to do.

When "settled" he'll get a job, then weeks later he's thrashing his employer/childhood friend who's employed his problematic self "bruh, I can't sell cakes for you no more, you only pay $25 per hour". Then rants about how he's still better than "most backup PG's in the weak NBL right now".

Man even if he was my flesh and blood, I'd find him so irritating.

I really don't care what he does with himself per se, but I have mates who work security, training partners in the police force, a general concern for the public. I really, really don't another massive meltdown where this guy might hurt someone (which to me, is a highly probable scenario).

Like, posts where he's bashing a heavy bag at a generic "lifestyle" gym. Doing comical "Muhammad Ali" routines while confused onlookers gawk at his Allan from Hangover self.

Caption: 2020 Tokyo, I'm coming to get me some sushi. I been taking hits from 7 footers all my career. I just badly want to punch someone that weights 74 kilos, etc etc. It's all the hall marks of a potentially violent person likely to cause some sort of public conflict.

It's funny how you can read into things. 2010, the Kings trained with Garth Wood, and this guy was so amped. Posted at 2AM on FB something like "just sparred Garth Wood, might go to the Cross, test my s*** out".

As I said, just a comprehensively classy guy.

There's only so much one human can do if someone flat out refuses to take steps towards a better life.

I really want Luke to recover and get back to some semblance of a balanced lifestyle. The guy was servicable in the NBL at least as a 6th Man, it is sad to see he couldn't use his basketball career as a launchpad to something better or be a stabilising influence.

Very sad to read.

Don't know the guy, but could be a combination of mental health issues and/or drugs. Sadly the two are often intertwined.
Use of some drugs can cause or exacerbate mental health issues, but also many people with those issue turn to illicit drugs to self-medicate.

Being Bipolar I can relate to many of those symptoms described. Prescribed drugs only do a partial job, and some people turn to other drugs in hopes of filling the gap.

The biggest issue is that being inside the problem looking out, a sufferer may not see their behaviour as abnormal. Then the illicit drugs simply make the problem worse.

I hope this didn't come off as a pick on him thread.

Mental health awareness is a passion of mine.

I’m a supporter of Royce White’s vocal presence in the US regarding such. His #bewell movement has some traction.

I’m just wondering - with all the networks open to a long time NBL athlete, why is there no designed "pathway" or “transition to retirement” sort of program for these guys?

Simple stuff, just educate them on basic shit like saving your earnings, looking into post basketball careers etc.

You see someone like Damian Martin who’s still playing at a high level, but is already entering into a career like real estate.

This is the problem with all this Centre of Excellence, TAP and other super athlete programs. It isolates them from the general population at such a young age, so a few get disillusioned. Visions of grandeur if you will.

For every very wealthy, marquee talent, there’s 500 journeymen who, whilst seeming “living the dream” of playing pro hoops, realistically in th grand scheme of life, earn fuck all to fall back on.

Would be great to see the NBL, and guys with the background to help (like Greg Hire) thoroughly address this.

Surely Martin isn’t alone. Wortho spoke publicly about post retirement mental health blues, so did Loggins.

It should be news worthy regardless of the person being a hall of famer, a credentialled Boomer or a journey man.

^ well said mate

This is something that the league needs, but to put it into perspective, something that even the AFL has only recently (10-15 years) started to take seriously and get right.

You'd like to see Jacob and the PA work with the league to put some measures in place to work with these guys while they're still in the league.

Not sure what they can do for guys who are already out of the system though. Hope Luke finds the help he needs.

A lot of people don't or won't have post sport mental health issues for a number of years. If there is such a program with the NBLPA then it should be open to current and former players.

This case would be beyond the sort of system the NBLPA (or whatever it's called now) might be expected to introduce. Maybe they could recognise and refer him to stronger support services, but I dare say his family and friends would have already done that.

I deleted the previous topic this week because it's really unlikely to help as a thread attracting full attention. Too close to gossip and gawking. Anyone in a position to help him is not here.

I imagine he's not provably dangerous enough to coerce into full-time support, but not self-aware enough to decide for himself. Anyone helping informally would be taking on a lot of risk themselves with no guarantee of success.

Your board your rules I get that - but it's that sweep the rug, "out of sight out of mind" mentality that allows mental health to stay taboo and an ever growing elephant in the room.

I repeat, 4 years ago, he threw rocks at a Cafe that wasn't long ago the site of a terrorist attack; he egged a police car, admitted to assaulting a police officer while resisting arrest, drove his vehicle across a busy Sydney CBD street the wrong way, assaulted another police office while in custody and basically showed no real remorse or understanding of the magnitude of his actions.

4 years on, he's abusing the league's head honcho with homophobic slurs, justifying his actions of 4 years ago, making public written threats to security guards, current and former players and making statements like "I just want to legally punch someone my own weight".

His account of his June 2019 bar incident is that he approached a "Chinese man who I thought I knew because they all look alike" then he was, in his own mind "unfairly" tackled by a security guard on concrete for "doing nothing".

Head wounds, and dozens of posts of him in hospital with all the gore of his injuries. Fleets between woe is me "why did this happen to me" and aggression "effing security guard, don't you know I'm loco, I'll come back and get you" etc.

I'm unsure what more he needs to do for anyone to realise that he IS dangerous - to himself and to those who may come across him.

Please google Daniel King who died last week in Sydney also. The signs are similar

-lack of zest for life
-personal drama relating to baby mamas
-and most scary, a very Bipolary "I want to go out with a bang" type delusion.

He wants attention - and he'll get it by increasing the crazy.

But hey, if no one wants to recognise that, suit yourself. Let's just wait for the news reports when he finally snaps I guess.

I mean, these $60K p.a. cops and $30 p.h. security guards should be able to handle a 5'11, 75 kg ex point guard anyway right?

Just an update if anyone is playing along.

He hasn't changed, IG lmartin_81

Still does the "what if" where he's saying "what could have been" where he re-counts all his NCAA, NBL glory days.

About a gazillion posts a day about how the Mental Health Act can (expletive) and goes on to post that he is actually breaching a mental health order that he be medicated (authentic documents). States he "don't want no acne or weight gain" etc.

Still claims he is "in talks with Huawei" to develop a billion dollar app idea. He's been claiming this since 2016. A few years ago it was "Switch Phones Friday" where he proposes that an app will basically "Freaky Friday" between couples. Yeah no issue with privacy at all in implementing that one..

Now claims he's going to develop an app called "Wildcat", where men can basically lurk on women's profile and "send them cash" as a precursor to taking them out on a real date.

Interspered with all this entertaining material though is the usual self loathing, "I can't get a job, I haven't had contact with my son for 5 years".

Then the usual what the posts advocating weed and other drugs, Eff the police, etc.

Even had a classy one where he basically re-lived his police interrogation from the Lindt Cafe days and he word for word, mocks/justifies his actions.

"I asked him for a glass of water, just so I can throw it at him - he deserved it, (smirk emoji)".

Not sure if mentally ill, massive tosser, or a little from column A and B as I suspect but man, it would really be nice to get closure from all this, as an interested/concerned bystander.

Mark my words - dude's a ticking time bomb and something drastic will probably go down if people keep ignoring his pleas for attention.

Why? These very boards seem to facilitate discussion/gossip re: fraud cases or any other relevant 'non basketball' matters of public interest, ie Rucker's fraud case, Heal's fraud case, etc.

Here's another ex-player, who is posting wild stuff, boldly saying that he willingly wants to breach a Community Treatment Order handed down by the Mental Health Tribunal, with pics that prove he is doing so. Why rubbish, especially given the magnitude of what he has done in the past.

How so? I've posted a genuine concern, it's mildly related to basketball and the NBL, it's factual, and can be verified (ie it's a public instagram profile, the articles written of his history is easily searched).

I love NBL life pieces. Keep us updated.

here's some Cliff Robinson notes

-he was a journeyman professional basketball player
-he had a publicised falling out with the last team that employed him, Perth, after which, it's noted that he had a marital separation and apparent (for ease of communication, let's use the obsolete term "custody") issues with gaining access to his only child, who was then 3 (this was 5 years ago).
-he goes and assaults a police officer, is charged with a whole bunch of stuff
-claims the mental health route
-is handed a Community Treatment Order to engage in mental health treatment
-flaunts from 2016-2020 of his unwillingness to comply with the orders
-posts aggressive content to league owners (homophobic slurs to Larry Kestelman) and ex players (challenges Patty Mills, threatens to "smack" Eban Hyams)

if it were any other breach, we'd be talking about it..

what if an ex player had an ADVO taken out on them by a previous partner, and said player was flaunting and flexing that he refuses to obey the order, would we keep silent also?

So why does a thread discussing Derek Rucker being sued by a small community QBL club for twelve dollas and thirty six cents because he didn't pay for fuel for his 1987 Mitsubishi Magna get to stay open?

His issues are apparent to anyone who's looked at his Insta. What good can come out of documenting and discussing it though?

Plenty.

One it gives him attention - if you follow the posts, as I do, you can clearly see the guy just wants attention.

It also paints the true picture of how ugly mental health is. It's not at all glamorous or "an easy watch".

Maybe, just maybe that might get powers that be (the league, ex players with money, ex players who played with him who might care to help him to actually act and do something. Anything - help him out, talk to him until he gets help, whatever.

it might even pressure him to stop being an ass and just get help and find his way back to "normal" knowing people are observing.

By the same logic, if we all just keep ignoring that he's obviously not well, what good does sitting on our hands waiting until he goes on another rampage do?

If he's willing to do what he did in 2015, and in 2018 have an altercation with a security guard where he ends up with a head injury, isn't the pattern of erratic behaviour there? Do we wait until it's so erratic that he or someone else is seriously hurt or dead?

Coz..yeah nah, fark that.