Thursday was the day for WNBA teams to set their rosters to comply with rules for the start of the season. It was already known that the Golden State Valkyries would have to make one tough decision during the day. After that move was announced with Kate Martin being waived, the team had a surprise additional piece of news with Iliana Rupert set to miss the season due to pregnancy. Besides having the ability to add one more development player, the team will now go through the process that will allow them to sign one more player.
Kate Martin
The rules in place left the Valkyries needing to drop their main roster down to twelve players for the start of the season and the decision was postponed for a while, but they ultimately waived Kate Martin. She was ever-present for the team last year, but did see fewer opportunities as other players worked their way into the rotation. With the positional balance of the rest roster needing to be taken into account, it was ultimately not too surprising that Golden State made the decision even though it was tough to let go of a player who was an expansion draft selection.
Now that she been waived, other teams in the league will have the opportunity to claim her existing contract. If no team does so, she will become a free agent and will have to sign a new contract to join a team. Just as she fit well with the Valkyries, there will certainly be some level of interest from other teams even if none of them ultimately claim her contract. Since this is the third year of her drafted player rookie-scale contract, the deal carries an option for a fourth year that guarantees her salary that a team would need to make a decision on quickly. If the Valkyries knew that they would not exercise that option, it would have been another factor in deciding not to retain her since she would have been playing the season knowing that the team was not ready to commit to her long-term.
Martin has not been in the league long enough to no longer be eligible to sign to one of the development player spots and that could certainly be an option if her contract is not claimed, whether it is with the Valkyries or another team. If she does clear waivers though, it does create the opportunity to sign a new regular contract that would not come with the additional guarantee for next year and there will continue to be roster spots that need to be filled all season.
Iliana Rupert
The announcement of Iliana Rupert’s pregnancy was a surprise and there was not much time to react as the Valkyries began to get approval to replace her, indicating that she will miss the entire season starting immediately. Rupert made a big impact on the team last year when she joined partway through the season and was expected to play an even bigger role as the main center from the start of this season. She had a great European club season, winning all five available trophies with Fenerbahce in Turkey.
The exact rules for teams and players around pregnancy in the new CBA have not been announced yet, but reporting suggests that they are better for players than they were under the previous agreement. The exact parameters are not clear, but after league goes through their process, the Valkyries will be able to utilize an additional roster spot in some capacity in order to return to twelve active players. With most rotation-caliber centers already on teams at this point, it seems more likely that Kiah Stokes and Laeticia Amihere will be relied on for more minutes early. The team could utilize the other development player spot to try and find another player who fits or attempt to find a trade later if they do not use the additional spot on a center, but with none of their power forwards really being able to slide over to center, having a third option is important. Some centers are occupying other teams’ development player spots right now, but the Valkyries would have to wait two weeks to attempt to sign one away from their existing team.
Juste Jocyte
The Valkyries will be without one more player on their roster to start the season as Juste Jocyte is still competing in the Spanish league playoffs with Girona. Sunday could be their last game, but if they advance to the finals, it would lengthen her absence by at least another week. As with everything else in the new CBA, there is no official language available yet, but all indications are that players missing time is handled the exact same way as under the previous agreement, which means that Valkyries do not have the space to carry an additional player right now even though she will not start earning salary until she reports to the team.
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