Nets: Surprise Two-Way Player Could Show off in Orlando Bubble

Jeremiah Martin #8, now of the Brooklyn Nets (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Jeremiah Martin #8, now of the Brooklyn Nets (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

Jeremiah Martin could be a pleasant surprise for the Brooklyn Nets entering the Orlando bubble.

The Nets need all the ammunition they can get in order to get the most out of the Orlando bubble, at this point.

Not to be callous, but of the 22 teams entering the regular season tune-up session and resulting playoffs, Brooklyn is the most ill-equipped unit, missing about half of their intended roster.

While that would logically seem like an ideal opportunity to essentially run auditions for 2020-21, the organization has instead appeared to content to patch round holes with square pegs, adding known commodities like Michael Beasley and Jamal Crawford instead.

If Jacque Vaughn is going to get an earnest chance to stick around beyond this ill-fated experiment, he’s going to need to maximize the talents of Caris LeVert, as well as discover a few additional chess pieces for the future.

And after a few days of practice, he claims to have one.

Jeremiah Martin arrived in Brooklyn at the tail end of the season’s first portion — he averaged just 5.3 minutes per game in three contests with the big club, but got 37 G League games in (in total), averaging 17.7 points per game, mostly off the bench.

A Memphis product, Martin went undrafted in 2019, but was one of the final cuts out of Heat camp, which is a solid indicator you’ve got talent. After all, Miami mines the edges of their available talent pool better than nearly every NBA team — look at Kendrick Nunn.

At this point, though the Nets are inarguably the worst position of the 22 teams involved in the NBA restart, the bubble seems tenuous at best for all parties.

Finding a guard like Martin, who could be a spark plug off the bench and potential instant offense, could change the narrative in 2020-21, while providing at least a better degree of entertainment than whatever Michael Beasley has for us in 19-20.

Here’s hoping this progress continues.