{"id":29585,"date":"2023-10-31T09:37:09","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T13:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=29585"},"modified":"2023-11-01T09:10:08","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T13:10:08","slug":"aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Aces Star Kelsey Plum Says Championship Win Wasn&#8217;t Possible Without God"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_29597\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29597\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/10\/kelsey-plum-02_credit-Las-Vegas-Aces-YouTube-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29597\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/10\/kelsey-plum-02_credit-Las-Vegas-Aces-YouTube-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29597\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Las Vegas Aces \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum is giving God all the glory after the team\u2019s WNBA Finals Championship win. At a press conference after the game, she said, \u201cI want to thank God. This is not possible without Him.\u201d Plum continued, \u201cThis group has been through so much, but it\u2019s here,\u201d pointing to her heart.<\/p>\n<p>She added, \u201cThere was a lot of years that we weren\u2019t so super, but you can\u2019t build a super team in a couple of months. It takes years. I\u2019m just really proud of this group.\u201d Plum also celebrated her win with her husband, Darren Waller. The couple have been making long-distance work after Waller\u2019s trade from the Las Vegas Raiders to the New York Giants.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/kelsey-plum-celebrates-wnba-championship-nfl-star-husband-darren-waller-8363912\">Waller told <em>People Magazine<\/em><\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s not ideal to have the person that you love the most not with you on a daily basis, but we make it work. We\u2019ve been handling it the best we can.\u201d He added that Plum will join him on the East Coast once the WNBA season ends, \u201cand we\u2019ll be back to living together, and it\u2019ll be all good.\u201d Plum has previously spoken about her Christian faith.<\/p>\n<p>Plum entered the WNBA with massive expectations. She was supposed to be able to replicate what she did in college at the pro level right away. However, a right ankle injury during her first training camp made the transition even more difficult. Plum made 23 starts and averaged 8.5 points per game in her first year, appearing in 31 games.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SQsyPCUP3ro?si=ENpjfcKxXktakTeB\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>These aren\u2019t bad numbers for a rookie, but they\u2019re not exactly what she hoped for. The adversity led Plum to evaluate her relationship with God. Raised in a Christian home, she never had faith forced on her by her parents, but she needed to learn what it truly meant to rely on Christ. <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsspectrum.com\/sports-spectrum\/2019\/12\/26\/magazine-las-vegas-kelsey-plum-aja-wilson-aces-faith\/\">She told Sports Spectrum<\/a>, \u201cI kind of had to go through life and figure out what\u2019s important. It takes a lot of failure and mistakes and humility to be able to see that I need a relationship with God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, the additions of 2018 scoring champion Liz Cambage and No. 1 overall selection Jackie Young to Las Vegas\u2019 roster presented a new challenge for Plum. Adding Young to the starting lineup meant Plum went from point guard, the position she was most familiar with, to shooting guard. Plum also missed training camp again due to overseas commitments.<\/p>\n<p>She said, \u201cI was struggling all year, and it was very hard for me personally. I think He was building me for something bigger.\u201d Throughout the physical and spiritual trials, the 29-year-old athlete continues to trust that God has an ultimate plan for her life.<\/p>\n<p>In a 2020 interview, Plum said, \u201cI\u2019m super grateful because I think that He\u2019s always really been very precise about exactly where He wanted me to be, and He\u2019s put certain people in my life to really help me. I\u2019m just super grateful, so I think for me, as I continue to grow into a woman and a woman of faith, I try to make sure that I\u2019m a light.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum is giving God all the glory after the team\u2019s WNBA Finals Championship win. At a press conference after the game, she said, \u201cI want to thank God. This is not possible without Him.\u201d Plum continued, \u201cThis group has been through so much, but it\u2019s here,\u201d pointing to her heart.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":29597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3630,7,10],"tags":[5924,5284],"class_list":["post-29585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes","category-entertainment","category-sports","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-las-vegas-aces"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Aces Star Kelsey Plum Says Championship Win Wasn&#039;t Possible Without God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a post-game conference, Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum said her team&#039;s win wasn&#039;t possible without God, crediting Him for their success.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Aces Star Kelsey Plum Says Championship Win Wasn&#039;t Possible Without God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a post-game conference, Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum said her team&#039;s win wasn&#039;t possible without God, crediting Him for their success.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-10-31T13:37:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-01T13:10:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/10\/kelsey-plum-02_credit-Las-Vegas-Aces-YouTube-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lauren McKeithen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Aces Star Kelsey Plum Says Championship Win Wasn't Possible Without God","description":"In a post-game conference, Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum said her team's win wasn't possible without God, crediting Him for their success.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Aces Star Kelsey Plum Says Championship Win Wasn't Possible Without God","og_description":"In a post-game conference, Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum said her team's win wasn't possible without God, crediting Him for their success.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2023-10-31T13:37:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-11-01T13:10:08+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/10\/kelsey-plum-02_credit-Las-Vegas-Aces-YouTube-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lauren McKeithen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html","name":"Aces Star Kelsey Plum Says Championship Win Wasn't Possible Without God","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/10\/kelsey-plum-02_credit-Las-Vegas-Aces-YouTube-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2023-10-31T13:37:09+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-01T13:10:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/67183b7ec4ffc995620174c78f9cc68a"},"description":"In a post-game conference, Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum said her team's win wasn't possible without God, crediting Him for their success.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/10\/kelsey-plum-02_credit-Las-Vegas-Aces-YouTube-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/10\/kelsey-plum-02_credit-Las-Vegas-Aces-YouTube-scaled.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"caption":"Las Vegas Aces \/ YouTube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/10\/aces-star-kelsey-plum-says-championship-win-wasnt-possible-without-god.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Aces Star Kelsey Plum Says Championship Win Wasn&#8217;t Possible Without God"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/67183b7ec4ffc995620174c78f9cc68a","name":"lmckeithen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/113\/113fb9cc9b1ebdaacbc1f17d658ad52ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/113\/113fb9cc9b1ebdaacbc1f17d658ad52ex96.jpg","caption":"lmckeithen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/lmckeithen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29585"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29603,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29585\/revisions\/29603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}