HENDERSON, Nev. – Kate Martin was there when her best friend, Caitlin Clark, became the face of women’s college basketball the past two years and then was in the building when her Iowa teammate was selected first by Indiana in this year’s WNBA draft.
Martin was also called up that April night, going 18th for the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces.
While she knows what the spotlight is like up close, it’s not as intense for Martin as it is for Clark. This gives Martin room to adapt to professional basketball without having every move scrutinized.
“We’re not asking her to come in and score 20 (points) and 10 (rebounds),” said two-time Aces MVP A’ja Wilson. “We don’t need that from her. We just need her to bring the energy and hard-working mentality she had in college.”
Martin and Clark remain in contact but haven’t seen each other since leaving for separate WNBA teams. That changes Saturday night when the Aces host the Fever.
“I miss her so much,” Martin said. “I spent every day with her for the last four years and I haven’t seen her in a month and a half. I’m excited to see it and it’s obviously going to be a good game. It will be a fun environment.”
While it has been known since Clark declared on Feb. 29 for the WNBA Draft that she would be No. 1, there was no guarantee that Martin would be taken. She attended the draft in New York as Clark’s guest, hoping to hear her own name called.
So it wasn’t certain that Martin would make the Aces roster. Coach Becky Hammon said Martin earned a spot based on “his work ethic, his competitiveness and his brain.”
“She’s trying to do some rotations, so she’s still learning our system,” Hammon said. “She’s still learning what we should and shouldn’t do, so she’ll have to learn on the fly. But what I love about her is that I know what I’m getting when I put her in the game. , it will be a smart effort, it will be a difficult effort.”
Even though Martin plays with a noticeable fire that has drawn praise from her All-Star Aces teammates, she hasn’t put much pressure on herself to make the club.
“I knew it would be really difficult to make this team, so I went in with an open mindset,” Martin said. “I wanted to be a sponge and learn as much as possible and after a few days I started to gain more confidence. I thought, ‘Maybe I could make this team,’ but I never got my hopes up because you never know what’s going to happen in this league.”
She was eased into the season and did not play in the season opener on May 14 against the Phoenix Mercury, but came off the bench four days later against the Los Angeles Sparks.
Martin made his first career three-pointer in that game and had five rebounds, three assists and a memorable block in 26 minutes. The rejection was from Sparks’ 6-foot-10 center Li Yueru, in which Martin gave up 7 inches of height, which elicited a guttural scream and a jolt in the chest from teammate Kelsey Plum.
“She knows how to play with superstars,” Hammon said. “That in itself is a skill set to know and understand how to impact a game without ever shooting the ball. In that Los Angeles game, she scored three points, but she totally impacted us by winning that game.”
Martin criticized his play in the following game. She missed all four shots in 14 minutes and had two rebounds and no assists.
The loss to the Mercury was the Aces’ first loss this season — they had just six in the regular season last year — and although Las Vegas’ problems in that game went far beyond Martin, it is trying to bounce back.
It turns out that the odds are against Clark and the Fever.
“Maybe I’m being a little hard on myself, but I feel like I messed up a couple of times,” Martin said of the Mercury loss. You don’t want to disappoint anyone. You don’t want to disappoint your teammates, so you really need to learn how to deal with that.
“Losing is going to happen and I’m not a good loser.”
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