{"id":307679,"date":"2026-05-09T13:19:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/307679\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T13:19:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:19:39","slug":"valkyries-coach-says-waiving-kate-martin-was-not-easy-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/307679\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries coach says waiving Kate Martin was not easy call"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE \u2014 It was an emotional few days leading up to the Golden State Valkyries<\/a>\u2019 opener on Friday. The team had to say a difficult goodbye and an unexpected hello.<\/p>\n

That goodbye was to guard Kate Martin<\/a>, a fan favorite and emotional leader on the 2025 team who had been waived in Thursday\u2019s final roster crunch. Martin, who appeared in 42 games with the Valkyries last season, is unlikely to return to the team this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very emotional, a lot of heartache,\u201d head coach Natalie Nakase<\/a> said before the Valkyries tipped off against the Seattle Storm. \u201cKate was our family member and someone we cared about deeply. And we still do care deeply about Kate. The special thing about Kate is when you have a conversation with her, she makes you feel like you\u2019re the most important person in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing Nakase learned last year in her first season as a head coach was to \u201clet players sit in their emotions. Let them feel it,\u201d which is what she and Martin did.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard because we are trying to construct the best team,\u201d Nakase\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

With heartache comes clarity about the roster\u2019s structure. Martin\u2019s departure makes room for Kaitlyn Chen on the roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chen is a true backup point guard, a facilitator needed behind starting point guard Veronica Burton. In an offense that thrives on ball movement, the point guard as the head of the snake is a crucial job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nakase has been in Chen\u2019s ear constantly throughout training camp.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like she puts a lot of trust and a lot of onus on us as point guards, so we sort of have to do that,\u201d Chen said. \u201cIt\u2019s just us getting people in the right spots and putting them in positions where they\u2019ll be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unexpected hello was to a new part of the Valkyries family. Iliana Rupert\u2019s pregnancy announcement appeared to be timed within days of the final roster decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHearing that news that she\u2019s pregnant, we were unbelievably happy for her,\u201d\u00a0Nakase said. \u201cThe first thing I wanted to let her know was that nothing changes here for you. We love you, we care about you, and you will always be a Golden State Valkyrie. You\u2019re always welcome here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guard Tiffany Hayes has already been talking to Rupert\u2019s stomach, Nakase said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just like, I don\u2019t know that the baby can hear you yet. But it\u2019s really cute to see how we\u2019ve been kind of taking in all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the court, Rupert\u2019s departure changes the look of the team and the center position. The Valkyries signed guard Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda, who had been waived during training camp, to a replacement contract Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Veteran Kiah Stokes steps into the primary center role and\u00a0Laeticia Amihere, typically a power forward, will slide into more minutes at center. The team will play smaller, allowing them to lean more into a quick, switching defense and exploit matchups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I\u2019m 6-foot-4. Whenever I have the opportunity to use my height and my length, I\u2019m going to do that,\u201d Amihere said. \u201cWhatever position they put me in, I know I\u2019m equipped and that I\u2019ve played it before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 It was an emotional few days leading up to the Golden State Valkyries\u2019 opener on Friday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105,127],"class_list":["post-307679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}