{"id":660498,"date":"2026-05-10T16:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T16:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/660498\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T16:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T16:24:10","slug":"los-angeles-sparks-sign-kate-martin-to-player-development-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/660498\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Sparks sign Kate Martin to player development deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Los Angeles Sparks have signed guard Kate Martin to a player development contract after she was waived by the Golden State Valkyries earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The former Iowa Hawkeyes star was originally drafted by the Las Vegas Aces in 2024 and spent one season there before being selected in the expansion draft by Golden State prior to last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cKate is a gifted shooter, whose grittiness and winning history mesh well with Sparks basketball,\u201d said Sparks general manager Raegan Pebley in a news release. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cShe\u2019s confident in her shot, plays tenacious defense and is an unselfish, high-energy teammate. We\u2019re eager to watch Kate develop within our system.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Martin averaged 2.6 points per game as a rookie and 6.2 points in her second year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In college, Martin was the first Iowa women\u2019s player to record at least 900 points, 500 rebounds, 400 assists, 120 steals and 60 blocks in her career. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Sparks have signed guard Kate Martin to a player development contract after she was waived&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[712,49,48,244246,82,630],"class_list":["post-660498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-los-angeles-sparks-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-149","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}