HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Kate Martin was proper there as her greatest good friend, Caitlin Clark, grew to become the face of girls’s faculty basketball the previous two years after which was within the constructing when her Iowa teammate was selected first by Indiana on this 12 months’s WNBA draft.
Martin additionally was drafted that April evening, going 18th to the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces.
Although she is aware of what the highlight appears like up shut, it’s not practically as intense for Martin as it’s for Clark. That offers Martin the respiratory room to adapt to skilled basketball without having each transfer scrutinized.
“We’re not asking her to return and rating 20 (factors) and 10 (rebounds),” Aces two-time MVP A’ja Wilson mentioned. “We don’t want that from her. We simply want her to convey the power and the hard-working mentality that she had in faculty.”
Martin and Clark stay in contact, however they haven’t seen one another since they went to their separate WNBA groups. That adjustments Saturday evening when the Aces host the Fever.
“I miss her quite a bit,” Martin mentioned. “I spent day by day together with her the final 4 years, and I haven’t seen her in like a month and a half. I’m excited to see her, and clearly it’s going to be sport. It’s going to be a enjoyable setting.”
Whereas it’s been identified since Clark declared Feb. 29 for the WNBA draft that she would go No. 1, there was no assure Martin could be taken in any respect. She attended the draft in New York as Clark’s visitor hoping to listen to her personal identify known as.
Then there was no certainty Martin would make the Aces roster. Coach Becky Hammon mentioned Martin earned a spot primarily based on “her work ethic, her competitiveness and her mind.”
“She’s attempting to work her approach into some rotations, so she’s nonetheless studying our system,” Hammon mentioned. “She’s nonetheless studying our dos and don’ts, and so she’s going to must study on the fly. However what I really like about her is I do know what I’m getting after I put her within the sport. It’s going to be effort, it’s going to be sensible effort, it’s going to be powerful effort.”
Regardless that Martin performs with a noticeable hearth that has drawn raves from her All-Star Aces teammates, she didn’t place numerous strain on herself to make the membership.
“I knew it was going to be actually laborious to make this staff, so I simply got here in with an open mindset,” Martin mentioned. “I needed to be a sponge and study as a lot as attainable, and after a number of days, I began to realize extra confidence. I believed, ‘Perhaps I may make this staff,’ however I by no means acquired my hopes up too excessive since you by no means know what’s going to occur on this league.”
She was eased into the season and didn’t play within the May 14 season opener towards the Phoenix Mercury, however got here in off the bench 4 days later towards the Los Angeles Sparks.
Martin made her first profession 3-pointer in that sport and had 5 rebounds, three assists and one memorable block in 26 minutes. The rejection was of Sparks 6-foot-7 heart Li Yueru, through which Martin gave up 7 inches in top, that drew a guttural yell and chest bump from teammate Kelsey Plum.
“She is aware of learn how to play with superstars,” Hammon mentioned. “That in itself is a skillset to know and perceive learn how to affect a sport with out ever capturing the ball. In that LA sport, she scored three factors, however she impacted us completely successful that sport.”
Martin was important of her play within the following sport. She missed all 4 of her photographs in 14 minutes and had two rebounds and no assists.
The loss to the Mercury was the Aces’ first defeat this season — they’d simply six within the common season final 12 months — and although Las Vegas’ issues that sport went far past Martin, she is trying to bounce again.
It simply so occurs that chance is towards Clark and the Fever.
“Perhaps I’m being a bit laborious on myself, however I really feel like I tousled a number of occasions,” Martin mentioned of the Mercury defeat. “It’s not simple. You don’t wish to disappoint anyone. You don’t wish to let your teammates down, so you actually must discover ways to cope with that.
“Shedding goes to occur and I’m not loser.”