Description

Cody Martin arrived in the NBA the long way around. A Mocksville, North Carolina native, he and his identical twin brother Caleb spent two seasons at NC State before transferring to Nevada, where Cody sat out a redshirt year before playing his junior and senior seasons. In two years with the Wolf Pack he helped the program to back-to-back Mountain West regular-season titles and a Sweet 16 appearance, and was named Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year as a junior. That extra college mileage made him, at 23, an unusually old rookie by the time the Charlotte Hornets took him with the 36th overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.

His rookie season in Charlotte was built on hustle rather than box-score numbers. Early on he was a bench piece averaging modest scoring totals, valued more for effort plays — diving for loose balls, sprinting the floor in transition — than highlight numbers, and he dealt with a nasal procedure and a stint in concussion protocol that cost him games. He nonetheless carved out a rotation role under coach James Borrego and, days after that health scare, earned his first career start, a 36-minute, 12-point outing against Luka Dončić and the Mavericks. His twin Caleb joined him in Charlotte as an undrafted free agent that same fall, and for a stretch the Martins became the only pair of identical twins ever to share the same NBA roster.

Martin's game continued to round into form as his career went on. His best individual season came in 2021-22, when he posted career-high averages across the board and led the entire NBA in three-point shooting percentage — a remarkable turn for a player whose perimeter shot had been the biggest question mark coming out of Nevada. The following year brought a setback: a knee injury required arthroscopic surgery, sidelining him for a stretch after he had just signed a four-year, $32 million contract to stay in Charlotte, a deal that reflected the value the organization placed on his two-way play even without star-level scoring.

This card comes from that true rookie year. It is the 2019-20 Panini National Treasures Rookie Patch Autograph, card #131, part of a checklist the release is remembered for producing some of the most sought-after hard-signed rookie cards of its class. Each copy is serial-numbered to 99, pairing an on-card signature with a piece of game-worn material from Martin's rookie season — a single high-end card capturing the moment an overlooked, late-blooming prospect turned Hornets draft pick began an NBA career defined more by persistence than by hype.