2025-26 Preseason opener quotes: Pedro Martínez

Valencia Basket men’s team held their first on-court preseason practice for the 2025–26 campaign this morning at La Fonteta. At the end of practice, head coach Pedro Martínez said they are approaching the start of the new season “obviously with excitement, motivation, and good spirits to face it and to overcome the challenges that will come up throughout the year, as always happens. Today’s practice was fun; we enjoyed it a lot because it’s the first day and everyone is very eager.”

The session was shaped by the absences the “taronja” squad is dealing with at this stage of preparation. Only five professional players were on court today (Nate Sestina, Matt Costello, Neal Sako, Kameron Taylor, and Omari Moore), joined by eight young players who made the morning practice possible: Nikola Dzepina, Jorge Carot, Álex Blanco, Marc Grau, Guillem Tazo, Roger Villarejo, Tomas Talcis, and Ilan Laville. This large presence of youngsters led the taronja coach to feel “like going back in time, because we had five first-team players and eight from the U22s. I felt a little nostalgic, like forty years ago when I was coaching Joventut’s junior team. I loved it, because of course the kids come in with a lot of enthusiasm. If we always had today’s roster, it would obviously be tough to compete, but we’d have fun, just like we did today, with the youngsters giving their all. Of course, they’re young players who are at a different stage of their careers.”

Although he only had five players available on court plus injured Nate Reuvers watching from the sideline, Martínez is hopeful of adding more players in the coming days: “Let’s see if tomorrow we can get some back. I think so, that we might have Isaac Nogués and Papi Badio, who are traveling today and I believe will join practice tomorrow. We have to be patient, because we’ve got six players heading to the EuroBasket, Nate Reuvers’ injury, and Montero, who although will come earlier, still has games left with his national team. Obviously, it doesn’t make sense to evaluate things until we have the full squad.”

Asked about changes to the roster compared to last season, Pedro Martínez was clear: “I don’t like making comparisons in general, and I certainly don’t like talking about the future because I have no idea. I was happy with last year’s team; I think we had a good season. Obviously, everything can always be improved, and I don’t think we should compare. We’re going to play in another competition, we’ll face different challenges. Some players were changed because we had no choice, we were forced to replace them; others were changes we decided to make ourselves. Now we’ll see how the new guys adapt. We have to work, take it one day at a time, and see how things develop.”

With only two returning professionals from last year’s roster, the taronja coach acknowledged: “Obviously, after today’s practice, the professionals who were already here last season—setting aside the youngsters—like Matt Costello or Sestina, are more integrated, because they already know how things work. For Omari or Taylor, everything is new. It’s all part of a process, we have to be patient and adapt without complaining too much about the missing players. But the reality is it’s a very unusual preseason and we’re quite affected because of the number of absences. It is what it is—we just need to adapt.”