Hello, hoopheads! With today being the seventh of 15 team previews, we’re at something resembling the halfway point of our preseason tour through the WNBA. The next subject made a splash as the league’s first expansion team in 17 years last season, but is planned to have five sisters in the WNBA’s new generation of teams by 2030. If I was doing WNBA teams as Taylor Swift songs, that would be my rationale for making the Golden State Valkyries “Eldest Daughter,” but alas, I went with Marvel Snap decks as my first Post Presence gimmick. On the other hand, maybe when I eventually get to Taylor I’ll decide the Valks should be “Lavender Haze.” Only time can tell!
What happened last season?
Most importantly to me, the Valkyries introduced their utterly adorable mascot Violet to the world after hatching her from a giant egg in a reveal that had just enough Gobbledy Gooker in it to make it perfect. Head coach Natalie Nakase and her players might argue that becoming the first expansion team to go to the WNBA playoffs was more important, but I am a very sarcastic New York Liberty fan and it was time that the W had a mascot worthy of being a clear third-best behind Ellie and Maddie. Kidding (or not kidding) aside, the Valkyries exceeded pretty much every standard imaginable for expansion teams, including at my Liberty’s expense when Golden State became the first expansion team to beat a reigning champion this century. The Valkyries fell to the Minnesota Lynx in the first round of the playoffs, but what they accomplished from the expansion draft through their inaugural season was remarkable.
What’s the roster going to look like?
The Valkyries made their first million-dollar signing in free agency, inking Gabby Williams to a three-year contract after a breakout 2025 season, at least as far as the WNBA is concerned. Williams led the league in steals last year as a member of the Seattle Storm and was named to the WNBA All-Defensive First Team as well as earning her first WNBA All-Star selection. That said, Williams had been a star overseas and for the French national team for years (she’s a two-time Olympic medalist), but played only 22 total WNBA games during the 2021, 2023 and 2024 WNBA seasons for a variety of reasons. She earned All-Defensive Second Team honors in 2022, her one full WNBA season in that span, and it always felt like more a question of when she’d break out in the WNBA than if.
Beyond Williams, nine of 12 players who logged at least 300 regular-season minutes for Golden State in 2025 are in Valkyries camp, and most of them are going to make the 2026 roster. That starts with one of my favorite players in the WNBA, Veronica Burton Valkyrie, who was the only player to appear in all 44 of Golden State’s regular-season games last year while earning the WNBA award that I wish was called Breakthrough Player of the Year. It’s actually called Most Improved Player, but Burton is a perfect example of a player who I am not sure improved as much as made the most of her first real opportunity to shine. I put her on my All-WNBA First Team faux-ballot in the Her Hoop Stats newsletter and I stand by it. Burton was the best point guard in the league last year. A 2024 WNBA champion with the Liberty, Kayla Thornton was also enjoying a breakout season and became Golden State’s first All-Star before suffering a season-ending knee injury during a post-All-Star practice. KT is also back for a second season in the Bay Area and made it back to the floor in time for the preseason opener.
Kaila Charles and Tiffany Hayes also signed guaranteed contracts to return while free agent center Kiah Stokes got a guaranteed deal as well. Returning players Kate Martin, Iliana Rupert, Janelle Salaün and Cecilia Zandalasini could all be let go without financial penalty, but I think they’re part of Nakase’s plans. Last year’s No. 5 overall pick in the draft, 20-year old Lithuanian-American wing Justė Jocytė, is also set to make her WNBA debut this season. If all of those players are on the 12-player roster, there’d be just one full-time spot left.
With that in mind, it makes sense that the Valkyries traded out of their first-round pick in the recent WNBA draft, sending the pick they technically used on Flau’Jae Johnson to Seattle for a pair of second-round picks. One of those was in this year’s draft and used on Marta Suárez, who I would guess is headed for one of the developmental slots at best. The whole thing was a bit awkward on draft night, but I’m bringing this up mostly because I want to give Nyanin a pass for that awkwardness. The deadline preventing trades from being executed after a certain point before the draft begins seems designed specifically to create such a scenario and I’ll never stop being annoyed about one in the MNBA which saw Mikal Bridges, the son of a longtime team employee, “picked” by the Sixers only for the rug to be pulled a little while later. It’s a dumb rule and I wish both the WNBA and MNBA would just allow trades during the draft to be made during the draft. At the very least, they should announce when a pick is being made on behalf of a different team.
What’s the Marvel Snap deck?
Each of the Snap decks I’ve shared so far has been a “meta” deck (one which is played commonly enough to be part of Snap’s metagame) or one I’d tweaked very slightly, but the Valks forced me to get a little more creative. Being an off-shoot of Marvel Comics, Snap features several characters derived from Norse mythology, one of whom is literally named Valkyrie. As such, I felt compelled to go literal and jam as many Norse characters as I could into my Valkyries deck. I also thought it made sense to give Golden State something that’s familiar, but just different enough from the metagame to keep opponents off balance, because ultimately I think that’s the spirit of Nakase’s Valkyries.
What’s the expectation?
The Valkyries were a good team last year and bring back most of the players who made it so. They also made what I believe to be a very shrewd addition in Williams, who would’ve fit like a glove with last year’s Valkyries, and have a promising young player coming aboard in Jocytė. That said, I definitely don’t think this team has the talent of Atlanta, Indiana, Las Vegas or New York, listed alphabetically. If I was ranking teams, I’d probably also put Minnesota ahead with the caveat that Napheesa Collier eventually returns and plays like one of the league’s best. Golden State would probably be next, however, and I expect the Valkyries to become the first WNBA team to make the playoffs in each of their first two seasons.