{"id":237283,"date":"2025-10-19T23:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T23:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/237283\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T23:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T23:04:07","slug":"princeton-factor-proved-to-be-a-silver-lining-for-kaitlyn-chen-after-getting-waived-by-valkyries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/237283\/","title":{"rendered":"Princeton Factor Proved To Be a Silver Lining for Kaitlyn Chen After Getting Waived by Valkyries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kaitlyn Chen\u2019s WNBA career had a rocky start, but she did not let it bother her too much. Her path to the league had not been a conventional one anyway.<\/p>\n<p>After missing her first season at Princeton due to COVID-19, she led her team to the Ivy League tournament title and was named the Most Outstanding Player three consecutive years. After graduating, she joined UConn for the last year of her eligibility and was part of the national championship-winning team.<\/p>\n<p>    How Did Getting Waived Become a Blessing in Disguise for Kaitlyn Chen?<\/p>\n<p>After getting drafted by the Golden State Valkyries in the third round of the 2025 WNBA Draft, Kaitlyn Chen spent the entire training camp with them and even played two preseason games. On May 14, the Valkyries announced that Chen was getting waived, which sparked some backlash from fans.<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix Mercury\u2019s Satou Sabally <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/problemsthots\/status\/1923068642695983587\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">took heat<\/a> for saying Chen \u201cwasn\u2019t good enough yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Chen did not wallow in her misery after the snub. She quickly signed with the 3XBA, a groundbreaking 3\u00d73 basketball league. Soon, she got a call back from the Valkyries and re-signed with the team. She made her WNBA regular-season debut on June 22, 2025, against the Connecticut Sun, where she scored five points playing 21 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent appearance on her former UConn teammate Azzi Fudd\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/jgzxHCwANz0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">Fudd Around and Find Out<\/a>\u201d podcast, Chen admitted that the waiver, in fact, worked out in her favor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPrinceton does reunions every year, and it\u2019s the highlight of my year,\u201d Chen shared. \u201cEveryone goes back, and you\u2019re reunited with all your friends. No one tells you that college is so great, and you don\u2019t really get to live with your friends like that anymore. But for reunions, you get to spend four days with your besties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was a little bummed that I might not be able to go if I were to make a team,\u201d Chen continued, making Fudd stifle a laugh at the admission. \u201cI was like, \u2018You know what? I\u2019ll go to training camp, give it my all, and if I make a team, I make a team. It\u2019s awesome, I\u2019ll be in the W! If I don\u2019t, I get to go to reunions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so, I got waived, and I was able to go to the reunion, had a blast, and loved spending time with my friends there. Then, I went home, worked out a little, and got called back. Everything, honestly, worked out really well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this summer, Chen shared with <a href=\"https:\/\/paw.princeton.edu\/article\/kaitlyn-chen-24-helping-wnbas-valkyries-defy-expectations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">Princeton Alumni Weekly<\/a> that it was \u201cnice\u201d to be back home after getting waived. It gave her a much-needed time to recuperate after the \u201ccrazy sprint\u201d with UConn\u2019s March Madness run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaitlyn Chen\u2019s WNBA career had a rocky start, but she did not let it bother her too much.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-237283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}