The life of a basketball player can be very volatile. Ask Jarl Martin – who starred last year in the Australian league, where he was one of the best players, arrived in Europe when he signed with Maccabi Tel Aviv and saw the season fade away slowly as he failed to adapt to the style and level of the Euroleague. The arrows were already aimed at the target, but the injury of Alex Poithers ruined the cards, and the disappointing forward got a chance to become one of the most important X-factors in Oded Ketch’s squad.
Before we get to Martin himself, let’s put the cards on the table – Oded Ketch was certainly not happy when he received the bad news about Poithers, but it seems that precisely the sharp change in the structure of the team allowed him to get off the tree in regards to the way he uses his players. In the 11 games leading up to the injury, we saw Ketch often insist on playing Poythers alongside Josh Niebo, which put both players in the unfamiliar situation of having to share the paint with a partner with an almost identical profile.
The combination of the two led them to fumble especially in the shared minutes, and quite a few moves in which they found themselves with the ball between the penalty line and the three-point arc, far from the ideal position they should receive the ball on the way to attacks that got stuck time and time again. In that sense, Martin fits Nieuw’s side much better than Poythers. Not only does he not overload the paint – he will almost always prefer to launch from outside the arc if he is in shooting mode. In fact, 37 of the forward’s 78 shots in the EuroLeague were 3-pointers, which allows for much better spacing than the Yellows had during the time of Poyters and Nieuwe together.
Naturally, with Poyters’ injury Martin’s status has risen, while the Yellows delay their next high-profile signing. In the five games without Poiters, Martin averaged 20 minutes per night in the EuroLeague, compared to the 16 he played on average before, an increase that he took full advantage of. It seems that Martin’s renewed status leads to a particularly encouraging change in regards to his self-confidence, which is evident both in the way he plays and in the data itself.
Let’s start with the simple numbers – without Poythers, Martin scores an average of 10.4 points in the Euroleague compared to 4.7 points before, collects 4.6 rebounds compared to 3.3 and enjoys a particularly sharp jump in three-point percentages, this when compared to a weak and disappointing 26.67% before Poythers’ injury, he rose to an impressive 40.91% quite.
Martin’s improved ability brings Ketch and the teammates to trust him more, with one thing feeding the other. From the data in InStat, it appears that Martin’s conversion percentage (the percentage of attacks in which a ‘decisive action’ was performed – a field goal, a free throw, a turnover or an assist) jumped from 15% to 25.2% – a particularly high figure in which he is second only to Lorenzo Brown (29%) in this time period.
Simply put – if at the beginning of the season Martin looked lost in the offensive sets of Ketch, now he has become the second most involved player in Maccabi Tel Aviv, also under the auspices of Wade Baldwin’s absence. In the new situation, the forward makes more decisions in the attack and is involved in more shots in the organized attack. The best example is during the pick and pop, which Martin should use to highlight his strengths, strengths that can help his team. Before Poythers’ injury, Martin threw a pick-and-pop finish in only 8.9% of his offensive moves, this compared to 17.8% after his friend’s injury – when the really impressive statistic is his efficiency in this move, when on average for such a throw he scored 1.25 points.
And yet, despite the positive change in recent times, Martin still has a lot to improve. Even in the five games since Poithers’ injury, he is not stable enough, and this is also reflected in the numbers. From the offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) which is the second weakest in the group which stands at 92.86 (compared to 90.1 before Poithers’ injury), through the net rating (the difference between the offensive efficiency and the defensive efficiency) which is still negative with -5.63 (compared to -10.23 before), to the plus index/ His minus showing -2.6 (compared to -2.8 before) on average per game.
It is not yet clear whether Martin is indeed good enough to be a starting player in a team aiming for the playoffs in the Euroleague, but there is no doubt that he is one of the key players in the recovery of Maccabi Tel Aviv. In the last four games he was a key player in the three victories, when in the disappointing game against Virtus he did not really appear. Martin scored 13 important points in the victory against Milan, Lahat with 21 points and 7 rebounds against Alba and was also significant against the Euroleague champion, Andolo Eps, with 8 points and 9 rebounds.
By the way, also in the great victory over Olympiakos earlier this season, Martin was one of the important X-factors with 13 points in 17 minutes, while in the performance against Monaco he provided 9 points in 18 minutes. Martin was there in all of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s big victories this season, and if he can continue to maintain stability, it will be real news for the Yellows.
From there, Maccabi Tel Aviv’s unplanned delay in the market regarding position number 4 may turn out to be worthwhile. The yellows manage to win without a hasty acquisition, and at the same time they also involve Martin, who knows that it is his time to take over the position and improve his status for the arrival of the player who will arrive. It is still too early to determine, but it is possible that soon Maccabi Tel Aviv will find out that despite the difficult acclimatization, the scoring 4 that she was looking for in the summer is indeed standing by her side, which may also change the plans regarding the characteristics of the player who will eventually be added as a mid-season reinforcement.
Is this Martin’s turning point or perhaps nothing more than a passing period? It’s hard to say, but one thing is already clear – Poithers’ injury not only did Martin good, it did Maccabi Tel Aviv as a whole in the short term at least. The chaotic arrangement of Ketch’s positions from the beginning of 22/23 was left behind without a choice, in what gave rise to order in the chaos mainly in what was done in the interior positions and put the lost player into matters. In the long run, anyway, Ketch also surely knows that he will need another figure in the number 4 position for the continuation of the crazy load that he faces, but until that happens, he can be encouraged by Martin who strengthens his position just before another battle for minutes.