While players like Cam Thomas and Michael Porter Jr. are respected scorers around the league, every team needs a guy like Tyrese Martin, and a few if they’re lucky.
Reliable. Unselfish. Coachable. Composed.
The numbers may not jump off the page, but those traits are what Martin, a former second-round pick out of UConn in 2022, has brought to Brooklyn’s roster. Once on a two-way contract, he’s earned the trust of his coaches and teammates, worked his way into a standard NBA deal in February and secured a spot on the Nets’ roster this season.
And over Brooklyn’s last four games entering Monday’s matchup against the Knicks at Barclays Center, Martin has started to show even more, pairing his usual effort and toughness with timely scoring and a growing confidence that’s beginning to stand out.
“Just being aggressive,” Martin said. “I know I didn’t start the first 10 games how I wanted to and to help this team, and mentally I was messed up, but then I kind of got out of that like five games ago and let myself play free mentally and not think about how I’ve been playing, just how I’m going to play going forward and it’s been working for me.”
Martin has long been known as an off-ball shooting threat, but head coach Jordi Fernández has asked him to handle more responsibility with the ball since training camp. That shift has been gradual. The 26-year-old didn’t have the strongest start while adjusting to his new role, but in recent games he’s begun to find a rhythm. He’s averaging 16 points over his last four appearances while shooting 57.9% from the field and 47.6% from 3-point range, along with 2.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.3 steals.
He also leads the team in true shooting at 74% over that span, and he’s starting to make a real name for himself.
“I think he’s just a mature, steady person,” Fernández said. “You see it in the day-to-day and it reflects on the court. All his teammates trust him. We trust him. And he’s been part of our success as far as competing every time we give ourselves a chance to compete.”
Even with the Nets investing heavily in a young core, Martin’s rise is a reminder that development doesn’t stop at 19 or 20. He’s older than the rookies Brooklyn is building around, but that shouldn’t exclude him from the same patience and runway they’re afforded. Growth comes at different speeds, and Martin is showing what can happen when a player in his mid-20s is given room to expand his game instead of being boxed into a label.
His recent stretch is proof of that, but now he has to sustain it. The more responsibility the coaching staff has given him, the more he has responded. Not by changing who he is, but by sharpening the qualities that already made him valuable. And as his confidence has blossomed, so has his presence in the locker room.
“He’s always a person that will bring the group together, he’ll talk,” Fernández said. “He doesn’t say much, but when he does say something, everybody really listens. That’s a guy that always leads by example. So, you always need a grownup, and I know he’s not very old, but he’s a reliable person, and I think we’ve tried to build something special. You definitely need people like him. He’s definitely a star in his role.”
