Kate Martin wants to make one thing clear: She’s a punctual person.
That bus in Dallas that left her in the parking lot after dining at the Vegas Aces? “They set me up,” Martin said of her teammates’ recent prank on the rookie. “Come on, now. I’m never late.
“Coach (Betsy Harmon) said she had to talk to me, and then I talked to her — nothing of substance. I was really confused. I thought it was a big deal, and then they Been planning this.
Aces bus almost leaves without Kate Martin 😂
🎥 @_ajawilson22 pic.twitter.com/GXPQzSRdUc
— The Athletic WBB (@TheAthleticWBB) June 5, 2024
To be fair, everyone on the Aces team recognizes Martin’s discipline. As Harmon said, “She just doesn’t make mistakes.” That’s one of the many reasons why Las Vegas — players, coaches, fans — fell in love with Martin, because she has been the most relatable person in the WNBA. Good story.
A month into the season, Martin is averaging more than 20 minutes per game for the two-time defending champions and is often the first substitute off Hammon’s bench, making it easy to forget just how important Martin is at the position. In five years at Iowa, she averaged double digits once per game while playing in the national spotlight of Caitlin Clark and earning All-Big Ten honors in just her final season. Martin is a complementary player in a draft class loaded with star power.
Toward the end of her college career, she talked about her final days at Iowa State before becoming “regular old Joe Schmo.” She didn’t even have an agent during the WNBA draft. She simply asked the Iowa coaches to talk to some pro coaches and based on that intel, deduced that she would only be drafted in the third round at best. Martin entered the draft to support Clark and did not plan to walk if she was selected because she was not invited by the league and her name could be called late at night.
But Harmon and Team Ace are more interested in Martin than she imagined. She said that every time Harmon and her staff watch an Iowa game, they think, “Oh my gosh, we love that kid Kate Martin! Oh, she’s so good, she’s so strong.”
Those cross signals ultimately produced one of the highlights of the draft, as producers asked Martin, who was sitting in the audience, to move to her row across the aisle at the end of the first round. When the Aces selected Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair with the 16th pick, she noticed the cameras starting to draw closer. Two picks later, it was Martin’s turn to shake the hand of league commissioner Casey Engelbert and take the stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Kate Martin aces! #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/1C55qt0mVY
—Aliyah Funschelle (@AliyahFun) April 16, 2024
Even if he’s drafted, there’s no guarantee Martin’s WNBA career will still go smoothly. Between 2021 and 2023, only 13 of the 36 second-round picks made the team’s opening roster, and some of those players were waived before the end of the regular season. Martin joined a team in Las Vegas with a crowded training camp roster and competition for only a few spots.
The week of the draft, Martin was assisted in the process of making the roster by her future teammate Kelsey Plum, who extended Martin a last-minute invitation to her “Dawg Class.” , to help her prepare for training camp. “We had an opening and I was like, ‘Kate Martin, sure. Let’s go,'” Plum said.
deeper
Kelsey Plum hopes to develop next generation ‘dawgs’
Once Martin arrived in Las Vegas, she steadily distinguished herself from the competition with her work ethic (what the Aces call the “effort factor”) and her ideas. She hopes to coach after her career and has proven her talent through her ability to learn terminology and schemes. Harmon recalls an instance when she was setting up a new, somewhat complicated sideline out-of-bounds play. As her teammates were on the court preparing for the game, Martin noticed on the sideline that they were not lined up correctly and pointed it out.
“To be able to make those adjustments and speak out, it was the ATO that she had just met, but she conceptually understood what we wanted to do and then she could put the pieces together,” Harmon said . “So that’s a good sign.”
Martin also came to Las Vegas by accident, where she never needed to be a star. The Aces need role players to surround their quartet of superstars, and Martin, who played alongside Clark in college, is elite at the task. She sets good screens, she moves the ball, she cuts hard to the rim, and she hits open jump shots. Vegas will never play for Martin, but she knows how to impact a game.
Martin credited Iowa State coach Lisa Bluder for helping her read the play. Bruder always said she didn’t want to coach a robot, forcing Martin to improve her IQ and learn how to make decisions without set tactics. Harmon gives the Aces freedom on the field, which is a natural extension of the Hawkeyes’ offense.
Martin cried when she learned she made the final roster, but without her, the Aces would have been in a painful position throughout the first part of the season. In her first WNBA game, Martin blocked the 6-foot-7 Li Yueru from behind and never looked back. She shot 37 percent from three-point range, a number that was better than every team in the league except the Minnesota Lynx. When she’s on the court, Las Vegas scores 0.7 points better per 100 possessions than she does off the court.
Harmon played Martin at the three or four in small-ball lineups, then started her at shooting guard against the Los Angeles Sparks, where she scored a career-high 13 points, and all three-pointers were hit.
Even though the Aces were on the road, her first three points nearly brought the roof off the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Just like she was with the Hawkeyes, Martin is a fan favorite wherever she goes.
Rookie Kate Martin was on fire in her first career start, scoring 11 points by halftime and going a perfect 3-3 from the deep 🔥
WNBA Commissioner’s Cup is presented by @coinbase | LVA-LAS on League Pass pic.twitter.com/qrNoOiu9sw
— WNBA (@WNBA) June 10, 2024
“Honestly, I didn’t expect this,” Martin said. “I never expected anything, really. I came into the league with no expectations and I think the most interesting thing is that I got an opportunity and I joined the best team in the world and it’s been great ever since. interesting.
There were a lot of fans in Martin’s locker room, too. In Harmon’s first two seasons as Las Vegas coach, she played a combined 524 minutes for four rookies. Martin entered Thursday’s game with 183 points, the second-highest total of Hammon’s six rookies. A’ja Wilson loves Martin’s energy and how she’s always ready when her name is called; the two-time MVP constantly instills confidence in Martin, encouraging her to shoot and play whenever possible to encourage her. Plumb calls her “a magic sponge.” Martin has already compared Alyssa Clark to a glue player, and Clark has the 2024 rookie under his wing.
Veterans may annoy her — check out the Hello Kitty backpack Martin travels with — but she sees it as a sign of love. After all, it was Martin’s birthday the day after her teammates tried to ditch her in a restaurant parking lot, and arguably the best player in the world gave her a cake, ribbon and crown.
Entering this season, it may not have been obvious whether Martin would be relied upon to such a degree as Las Vegas chased a three-peat. But there’s one thing to know about this ace rookie – she’s ahead of schedule.
(Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
