The Sparks have been struggling this season to find players who can contribute to winning.
The one they did land one, though, in Kate Martin.
She was added to the roster on a developmental contract right at the beginning of the season after getting released by the Golden State Valkyries. A developmental contract is new to the WNBA this year.
Teams can sign two players to developmental deals. They can practice and travel with the team but are only allowed to be active for up to 12 games.
In many situations,
these players would only play if there were injuries and a team needed them to fill in for a game or two. However, that’s not how the Sparks have been using Martin as she’s been active for seven of LA’s 11 contests so far.
In those minutes, she’s been a ball of energy coming off the bench. Martin has been knocking down 41.7% of her 3-point shots and had her best offensive performance in a loss to the Tempo, scoring 11 points on 4-7 shooting.
Against the Portland Fire on Sunday, the Sparks were fully healthy and Martin still got rotation minutes, playing for eight minutes in the win. After the game, All-Star guard Kelsey Plum expressed her desire for Martin to be on the team permanently.
Since Martin has already been active in seven contests, she only has five more opportunities to suit up as a Spark. So, LA either needs to save those games for later on in the year or commit to Martin and sign her to a standard deal.
However, the Sparks have no open roster spots, so they’ll need to waive someone to get that done.
That’s never easy, but they’ll have to look at their end-of-bench players and decide who they need to release. Rookies Jihyun Park and Ta’Niya Latson have both played fewer games than Martin, and so have veteran Emma Cannon and two-year player Sania Feagin.
A developmental player can’t be ahead of four rostered players for long. The Sparks made the right choice by quickly adding Martin to their franchise, and now they have to upgrade her to a roster spot so she can continue to impact winning for the rest of the year.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
