Analysis: Skilled big man Jhaylon Martinez is work in progress

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Friday, April 3, 2020 | 2 a.m.

There is a very clear blueprint for the type of big man who thrives in T.J. Otzelberger’s system.

When Otzelberger was the head coach at South Dakota State, he built his system around Mike Daum, a burly 6-foot-9 forward who could shoot the 3, drive in advantageous situations, finish around the rim and hold his own in small-ball lineups on the defensive end. By the time he graduated, Daum was a consistent 25-and-10 player who led SDSU to a pair of NCAA Tournaments in his last three years.

It’s only natural for Runnin’ Rebels fans to want to find their version of Daum, and that’s why so many were excited when Class of 2020 center Jhaylon Martinez committed to UNLV in August. Rated as a 3-star prospect by 247 Sports (No. 29 center and the No. 215 player overall), Martinez was lauded for his offensive skill and Daum-like versatility. The hype only increased when Martinez said part of Otzelberger’s recruiting pitch was a plan to utilize Martinez in a role similar to Daum’s.

So what exactly are the Rebels getting in Martinez? I watched a sampling of his games from last year at Dream City School (Glendale, Ariz.) to get a better feel for his strengths and weaknesses and what he might bring to the table during his time at UNLV.

The first thing that stands out when watching Martinez play last year was his sheer size. He’s listed at 6-foot-10 and 230 pounds, but he plays way bigger than that inside the paint. There were multiple examples of Martinez simply bullying smaller players in the post, walking them back under the basket and sealing them off for easy catches and finishes:

College opponents will be bigger and stronger than the players in that video, obviously, but Martinez has a naturally strong base and his power game is going to make it difficult for teams to go small against him. He’s a flat-out people mover when he wants to be.

The question is how often he wants to be. He didn’t get a lot of post touches in the games I watched, and some of that was because he didn’t always fight to establish killer position. When he did, he made it count by overpowering his defenders.

He’s not just a power player, however. The skill that really bodes well for Martinez is his passing ability. Otzelberger has repeatedly said that this recruiting class was all about improving the roster’s passing ability, and Martinez is a prime example.

He is a very willing passer. He has good feel and timing for when to kick it out of double teams, he throws cross-court dimes, he launches on-target outlet passes and he can drop over-the-top assists to backdoor cutters. If I had to guess, I’d say this is the aspect of Martinez’s game that really prompted Otzelberger to offer him a scholarship:

The Rebels couldn’t really include the center position in the offense as much as they wanted to last year because Mbacke Diong is a defensive-minded player who doesn’t possess a natural feel for offensive concepts. Martinez does, and his passing should eventually help unlock an additional chapter of Otzelberger’s playbook.

The other part of Martinez’s offensive game that drew acclaim during his recruitment was his ability to stretch the floor with his jump shot, so I was surprised that he didn’t attempt a single jumper in any of the five games I watched. For now, that aspect of his skill set remains anecdotal.

He is comfortable with the ball in his hands, however. In addition to his passing, Martinez can put the ball on the floor a little bit and drive when space is available. He’s not Daum in that regard, but Daum was absolutely elite in facing up and beating big men off the dribble; Martinez is still developing that part of his game.

I saw him drive for two layups and commit one turnover in five games, but more important than the results were his comfortability in putting the ball on the deck:

There’s a reason I keep implying that Martinez may need time to become a consistent contributor for UNLV. Based on what I saw from his last high-school season, there is still a lot of physical development that needs to happen before he can play effectively at the college level.

Simply put, Martinez needs to improve his fitness level. He needs to get quicker, faster and more explosive in everything he does. There were too many instances where his physical limitations were exposed against prep players, so he’s going to have to put in a lot of work in order to hack it against Division-I opponents.

On the offensive end, those issues manifested in his inability to finish around the rim. Despite his height and soft touch, he had trouble converting layups in even the lightest of traffic. He was slow to leave the ground and usually needed to gather before going up with the ball, allowing smaller, quicker, more explosive defenders to challenge his shot or even block it:

Martinez sub-par athleticism was more noticeable on the defensive end. His lack of quickness made him a liability, and in the games I watched his coaching staff removed him in the final minutes of close games in order to get better defenders on the floor.

The two most important things a big man has to do defensively in today’s game is defend ball screens and defend the rim. Martinez struggled in both areas.

Against ball screens, his footwork was too slow and he was often caught lunging at the point of attack. That allowed the screen-setter or the ball-handler to shoot past him with ease, leaving Martinez trailing the play by a wide distance and putting his teammates in a situation where they had to defend 4-on-5.

When Martinez tried to show and recover back to the screen-setter, he often took circuitous routes, allowing easy passing lanes to the rim or losing position on the glass.

It led to a lot of bad defensive possessions:

The first two plays in that video package would make Martinez unplayable at the college level. He has to get lighter and quicker and improve his footwork tremendously or college opponents are going to target him with ball screens on every single possession and get wide-open shots. I can’t imagine Martinez getting serious playing time in 2020-21 unless he improves that aspect of his game drastically. The good news is that the effort is there.

As far as rim protection goes, Martinez does not offer that. It just doesn’t appear to be part of his game. When opponents challenged the rim, he would stand flat-footed and raise his arms straight up in order to make them shoot over him; he didn’t truly try to block or alter a single shot in any of the five games I watched.

He was also slow to the spot, so there were a lot of instances of him coming in at the end of a play and committing a touch foul instead of challenging the shot:

Positioning and verticality can be an effective way to play defense around the basket, and some coaches actually prefer that to leaving your feet to chase blocks, so perhaps Martinez was following orders last year. But considering his lack of lift and inability to get off the floor quickly, it doesn’t seem like he’ll be swatting a ton of shots at UNLV.

There were also times when Martinez had to pick up smaller defenders, either on switches or in open-court situations, and those did not go well. He got turned around too easily and took too long to recover, letting smaller players go around him with ease:

Another key element of frontcourt play is rebounding, and Otzelberger put a heavy emphasis on winning on the glass last season. Martinez has the size and strength to be a monster board man, but he didn’t produce like that last year.

Again, it was his physical limitations holding him back. Even when Martinez had good position under the rim, opponents were too often able to out-jump him or out-maneuver him to tip away the ball and keep plays alive. Martinez had trouble securing any clean rebounds in traffic:

You can see why UNLV wanted Martinez. He’s a high-skill big man with terrific size and strength, and most of his issues boil down to conditioning and fitness. If you want to dream big on Martinez, you can imagine putting him in a college weight room for a year and getting a more explosive version of him, and that future player has awesome upside.

If everything pans out and he shows great dedication to improving his explosion and athleticism, Martinez could become the ultimate small-ball center, capable of playing with finesse and power on the offensive end while manning the boards and providing size on the defensive end. He has that ability.

It might not translate immediately, but now it’s up to Otzelberger and the coaches and, most importantly, Martinez himself to make sure he fulfills that potential.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.