Martin nears return, Mike Malone comes aboard in Phoenix

The Wolves just got done working out in Phoenix, back to work again after Tuesday's victory at Indiana broke their 15-game losing streak.

A bunch of this and that from practice:

* Kevin Martin had a good day at practice pain free, feeling well and could return almost any day now.

"I think I'm getting close, I think I impressed them today," he said. "I was back to K-Mart today. Today was a big step."

Asked if he was inspired by teammate Mo Williams' career-high and franchise-record 52-point game Tuesday, he said, "I don't know what it was, I think it was. I've been hanging out with Mo lately, I think he rubbed off on my today.

Martin said he's uncertain if that means he'll play sometime on the remaining three games of this road trip that goes Phoenix Friday, Denver Saturday, Charlotte Monday.

Asked if he could play as soon as Friday against the Suns, he said, "I don't think it's likely, but you never know when you wake up."

"I don't know if he's ready yet," Saunders said. "That's going to be his call. One of these days he's going to get up in the morning and say he's ready"

* Martin is closest of the trio of injured that includes Nikola Pekovic and Ricky Rubio.

Rubio is the furthest away of the three and Saunders said Rubio still has some soreness on the inside of his ankle and said "definitely not" about the prospect of Rubio playing on this trip.

"Almost like a little bone bruise so we're going to be very cautious with that," Saunders said.

Saunders said Pekovic is willing to go to the D League for rehab and the team would send him there, but the D League's current Showcase in Santa Cruz, Calif., might mean the timing won't work out for Pekovic to go down and get 22, 24 minutes in a game.

* Former Sacramento coach Mike Malone was at practice today and will travel with the team on the rest of this trip.

He coached Williams at Cleveland, knows Martin and he walked out of practice today chatting with Thaddeus Young.

Saunders said he's done that before with other coaches who have been fired because "the first three days you get 120 calls. Everyone tells you how great you are and two weeks later, no one talks to you."

Saunders said he invited Malone to come down and travel with the team and he accepted.

"It's good to have him and it's something hopefully that will help him, too," Saunders said.

"I got a lot of reaction," he said. "It was a special moment for myself. A lot of people saw it and gave me a lot of attention for it. But I'm a couple days removed from it, so it's dying down a little bit."

When asked if he has gone back and watched the game, "To be honest with you, I just saw the clips they put on social media, on my Facebook page or whatever, I saw the highlights, definitely I did."