Amid the sweeping revolution Xevi Pujol has engineered at Barça this summer, with as many as eleven new signings taking advantage of the expiry of contracts held by several of the team’s veterans in recent seasons, the defining trait of the new arrivals seems clear: Barça have opted for hungry, highly physical players who, with the exception of Josh Nebo, have little EuroLeague experience but have nevertheless brought down the average age of a roster that was crying out for a refresh.
There is, however, a risk that comes with betting on younger legs: finding enough scoring firepower to replace what Will Clyburn and Toko Shengelia provided until just a few months ago, potentially leaving Kevin Punter carrying too much of the offensive burden. That is where three players in particular come in: point guards Justin Robinson and Umoja Gibson, and wing Tyrese Martin.
Set to embark on his first European experience, the 27-year-old American, who stands 1.98 metres tall, looks set to become one of Barça’s key barometers. If he performs at the expected level, he will undoubtedly raise the competitive ceiling of a team that, it must be said, still comes with a few question marks. Martin arrives from the Philadelphia 76ers, where he spent last season splitting his time with their G League affiliate, the Delaware Blue Coats, after putting together his best stretch of NBA basketball during the season and a half he spent with the Brooklyn Nets under Catalan coach Jordi Fernández.
Barça expect Martin to bring size, physicality, intensity, scoring ability… and competitiveness. The Allentown, Pennsylvania native is one of those players for whom competing seems to be part of his DNA. When he left the University of Rhode Island in 2020 to join UConn, Dan Hurley was not simply adding a wing capable of doing a little bit of everything on the court; he was also taking on a player whose personal story went a long way towards explaining his character. Martin was, in the words of his former high-school coach, something of a “Swiss Army knife”: a player capable of adapting to different situations and contributing in virtually every facet of the game.
His profile was that of a big, physical and athletic perimeter player, capable of defending multiple positions and, above all, possessing an extraordinary nose for the rebound. At Rhode Island, he averaged 12.8 points and 7 rebounds per game in his sophomore season, but his coaches insisted that the numbers did not fully capture his impact. His ability to attack the rim, run the floor, defend and compete for every loose ball made him an especially valuable player. “He is relentless on the boards,” said Jim Johns, his coach at William Allen High School. He was not wrong: during his time with the Delaware Blue Coats, Martin averaged 9.7 rebounds per game. An extraordinary number for a perimeter player.
There was also a less visible side to him: Martin enjoyed confrontation. He was an intense player, a competitor who could engage in trash talk during a game and who seemed to need very little external motivation to stay locked in. Yet that aggression coexisted with a level of maturity unusual for a player his age. During his first college season, after a loss to Saint Louis, the team was scheduled to go to the movies the following day. Martin objected. “After a loss, going to a movie should be the last thing on our minds,” he argued. His goal was to win a championship.
His mindset is easier to understand when you know what happened in the spring of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic left his mother, Pamela Rynearson, out of work after she lost her job as a restaurant manager. Martin returned home to Allentown and began working eight-hour shifts at a FedEx warehouse, packing boxes and preparing shipments. Even after his shift, he still found time to complete his college coursework remotely and work out at night. This was not a metaphor for sacrifice: he was doing physical labour to help his family make ends meet.
“My mom had to take care of me and my three younger sisters,” he explained years later. She had been working ten- or eleven-hour days just to cover the family’s basic needs. Martin understood that he had to do his part, too. “Every day I knew I had to take advantage of this opportunity with basketball to try to change my family’s situation and mine for the better.”
That experience fits perfectly with the personality he would later display on the court. Martin never seemed to view hard work as negotiable. When asked about the monotony of warehouse work, his answer was telling: it did not matter if the job was boring. There was work to be done. Bills had to be paid and a family had to be supported.
And perhaps that is the best way to understand his game. Martin was never simply a scorer. His value lay in doing whatever the game demanded: defending, rebounding, running the floor, attacking the rim, spacing the floor to shoot or battling for a loose ball. A versatile, physical and competitive player whose basketball seemed to be built around one very simple idea: do the job that needs to be done. On and off the court.