Valkyries Face Risk of Losing Former Top-Five Pick After WNBA Title Run
Being a young player on a team with championship aspirations is hard. There’s little room for errors, which means no time to work through mistakes during games and no consistent minutes behind the older, more experienced players who will deliver the championship. There’s a reason that the Las Vegas Aces haven’t really developed any draft picks in years.
Juste Jocyte learned that the hard way in her rookie season with the Golden State Valkyries. The Valkyries drafted the then-19-year-old Lithuanian star with their first-ever draft pick in 2025, when they were still a new franchise that had to amass as much talent as possible. Jocyte wasn’t ready to come to the WNBA yet, but continued to develop in Europe. By the time she joined the team for this season, the Valkyries already had their sights set on a championship.
Jocyte missed training camp this year. So, although she’s a phenomenon in Europe where she became the youngest player to play in the EuroLeague at just over 14 years old, she was the youngest and least experienced player on the Valkyries’ roster. Moreover, while she is a great offensive talent, her defense didn’t necessarily seem to meet the Valkyries’ insanely high standards. As a result, she only averaged around eight minutes per game across 16 regular-season games and saw just five minutes of action in the playoffs—three in a blowout Game 1 win against the Dallas Wings and two in a 26-point loss to the Atlanta Dream.
Jocyte is now back in Lithuania for a stint with her national team and spoke to local media. In the interview, she shared how frustrating it had been to ride the bench all season and questioned her future with the Valkyries.
The Valkyries seem to be at risk of losing Jocyte
The article is in Lithuanian, so the translation has to be taken with a grain of salt, as not everything might be completely accurate. However, the gist of the interview is pretty clear: Jocyte would have liked to play more and didn’t feel like she got proper explanations instead of “excuses” for why she wasn’t playing—or a legitimate chance to prove herself to the coaching staff.
Juste Jocyte spoke very candidly to the Lithuanian media yesterday about her season with the Valkyries. Take her comments with a small grain of salt because a lot can be lost in google translation, but the big notes:
— Kenzo Fukuda (@kenzofuku) November 9, 2026
- Jocyte's relationship with Natalie Nakase is very clearly…
Moreover, Jocyte hinted at the fact that she doesn’t want to return to Golden State. The Valkyries will look to repeat as champions and might even add a veteran star or two in free agency. So, there’s little reason to believe that Jocyte’s role will change. She will still be young, inexperienced, and not one of the players who contributed to the team’s title run.
Jocyte could sit out the 2027 WNBA season, as many European players have done at times, and see if the situation changes. The Valkyries could suspend her contract and sign someone else in that situation. However, the Valkyries could also try to trade her. If she’s not going to return to your team and there’s a rift between her and the coaching staff, why hold on to her when teams like the Seattle Storm, Houston Comets, Chicago Sky, or Los Angeles Sparks might want to trade for a 20-year-old development project with high upside and pro experience?
Losing Jocyte wouldn’t be the end of the world for the Valkyries. They just won a title, after all, and have a chance to build an even more dangerous roster. At the same time, however, it’s not a great look after the whole Flau’jae Johnson draft-day debacle this year, and it might make young players wary of joining the team in the future.
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Elaine Blum covers women’s basketball for On SI from Europe. She has been writing about women's hoops since 2023 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism and a master’s degree in American Studies with a focus on women’s and gender studies. She started playing basketball when she was 10 years old and won several league and state championships at the youth and senior level.