{"id":621725,"date":"2026-05-03T21:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T21:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/621725\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T21:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T21:35:09","slug":"latest-marta-suarez-surprise-valkyries-waive-ex-cal-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/621725\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest Marta Suarez Surprise: Valkyries Waive Ex-Cal Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5h\">One-time Cal star Marta Suarez was acquired by the Golden State Valkyries in a surprise draft-night deal.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5k\">Now she has been waived by the WNBA franchise this weekend in an equally surprising turn of events.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5n\">The move comes less than a week ahead of the Valkyries&#8217; regular-season opener and doesn\u2019t for certain mean Suarez won\u2019t be back with the team.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5q\">The Valkyries could reclaim her if she clears waivers, allowing them to give her one of two \u201cdevelopmental\u201d spots on the roster beyond the 12-player standard roster.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">\u201cDevelopmental\u201d players can practice with the team and are allowed to play in up to 12 games.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5w\">A 6-foot-3 forward of Spain, Suarez played two seasons with the Bears after beginning her college career at Tennessee.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5z\">She started 34 games for Cal in 2023-24, averaging 11.9 points and 6.9 rebounds for a team that finished with a 19-15 record and advanced to the second round of the Women&#8217;s Basketball Invitation Tournament.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"62\">A year later, Suarez started 32 games and averaged 12.9 points and 7.2 rebounds for Cal, which finished with a 25-9 record and reached the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"65\">Suarez then transferred to TCU for the 2025-26 campaign and  helped the Horned Frogs to an Elite 8 berth at the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"68\">On WNBA draft night last month, the Valyries used their No. 8 pick to select LSU star Flau\u2019jae Johnson. In an unexpected move, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/college\/cal\/basketball\/ex-cal-player-marta-suarez-returns-to-the-bay-area-in-wnba-01kp6cvzx3wh\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Valkyries then sent Johnson to the Seattle Storm<\/a> for\u00a0Suarez, who was taken first in the second round, plus a 2028 second-round pick.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6b\">On Saturday, before announcing Suarez had been cut, coach Natalie Nakase suggested finalizing the roster would a difficult.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6e\">\u201cEveryone has been impressive from top to bottom\u00a0\u2014 learning, wanting to be here, challenging each other every single day,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sports\/article\/valkyries-waive-six-players-including-cal-alum-22238265.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nakase told the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6h\">\u201cSo it\u2019s definitely going to be a hard decision. But at the end of the day we\u2019ve got to pick the best 14 (players) who fit together. Yeah, it\u2019s really going to be tough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-14\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6k\">The Valkyries open their season Friday against the Storm in Seattle.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-15\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6n\">Follow Jeff Faraudo on Twitter, Facebook and Bluesky<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One-time Cal star Marta Suarez was acquired by the Golden State Valkyries in a surprise draft-night deal. Now&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-621725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621725","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=621725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}