Unrivaled and Kate Martin have agreed to terminate her contract ahead of the coming season, ending a deal that had made her one of the league's more closely watched names. Martin has not immediately said what comes next.
The move matters now because Martin is still searching for steady footing after being drafted into the WNBA in 2024 and moving from the Las Vegas Aces to the Golden State Valkyries and then to the Los Angeles Sparks. For readers tracking her path, the contract termination is the latest turn in a career that has already changed direction more than once.
Martin's rise has not been linear. She had been drafted into the WNBA in 2024, then was drafted by the Golden State Valkyries in December 2024 as part of their expansion draft, but not making the Valkyries' roster during the 2026 season was a heavy blow. Even so, she persevered and played her way up from a development contract to a standard contract, which is why this latest reset lands with more weight than a routine roster note.
That is also what makes the split harder to read. Before she was drafted, Martin had planned a career in coaching, and some people are already speculating that she could go overseas to play in Europe. At the same time, the broader view of her career has not changed: the work that got her this far suggests her best days may still be ahead, even if the next chapter is not yet clear.
For now, the main question is not whether Martin can keep playing at a high level. It is where she will do it next, and whether that answer comes in the WNBA in 2027, overseas, or somewhere outside the path she once expected to follow.
