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There is a lot of anticipation about how the Golden State Valkyries will fare in their first WNBA season. Frankly, few are giving Golden State a chance to compete, given how they were unsuccessful in attracting top-tier free agency to the team this past offseason and are therefore limited to the roster they built from their Expansion Draft back in December and then the 2025 WNBA Draft earlier this month.
One of the players selected in this Expansion Draft is former Iowa Hawkeyes standout and then Las Vegas Aces rookie Kate Martin, who is undoubtedly the team’s most popular player to this point.
Martin is used to winning. And when speaking with the media after her team’s first WNBA training camp practice, she made it clear that her team’s mentality this season doesn’t leave room for weakness.
“Killers,” Martin said when asked what she wants the Valkyries’ team identity to be, per an X post from ESPN’s Kendra Andrews.
“We want to be gritty, we want to be relentless. We want to be the ones diving on the floor for loose balls. We went to be the ones getting stops, we want to be playing together and work our tails off,” Martin continued.
What does Kate Martin want the Valkyries’ identity to be?: “Killers.”
“We want to be gritty, we want to be relentless. We want to be the ones diving on the floor for loose balls. We went to be the ones getting stops, we want to be playing together and work our tails off.”
— Kendra Andrews (@kendra__andrews) April 27, 2025
It will be interesting to see how much playing time Martin receives with Golden State and if she can continue developing into a valuable player for the Valkyries. What’s for sure is that if her team adopts this “killer” mentality that Martin speaks of, Golden State will be putting up a fight against every team they face this season.
