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Jumping on the Valkyries’ Bandwagon? What to Know About the WNBA’s Biggest Success Story Yet

Kristen Wong|
Gabby Williams helped lead the Valkyries to their first WNBA Finals berth just two years into the expansion franchise’s existence.
Gabby Williams helped lead the Valkyries to their first WNBA Finals berth just two years into the expansion franchise’s existence. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Golden State Valkyries

Don’t try to hide. I know that look. It’s the same starry-eyed gleam in your eyes that shone when the Warriors clinched their first NBA title in the Steph Curry era. Curry was a part of something big, then. Gabby Williams and the Valkyries are building something big, now, after sweeping the defending champ Aces and reaching the WNBA Finals in just the franchise’s second year in the league.

So you want to be a bandwagoner. Fine. So be it. The mightiest pillar in Golden State’s foundation may be its culture of inclusivity, so it wouldn’t be a good look to turn fledgling fans away. (Some ground rules: You are a decent person, and not an online troll or bot.)

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The Valkyries aren’t your Young Hos. They’re not playoff juggernauts, they don’t house legions of former or budding MVPs. They’ve only existed since 2024, which means they’re younger than some COVID mask policies in western Massachusetts towns.

They also might be the most fun team to watch this WNBA season, and you don’t want to miss out on the final chapter of the league’s coolest expansion success story so far. So buckle up, and take notes. Here’s everything to know about the 2026 Valks:

Gabby Williams is the heartbeat

World, meet Gabby Williams. She’s pretty good.

Williams put up her lowest scoring total of the playoffs in Friday’s Game 3 win over Las Vegas (16 points), but her buckets down the stretch proved especially clutch (she scored half of her points in overtime). Here’s her going iso against an Aces defender late in OT to hit a jumper, giving Golden State an eight-point lead with less than a minute remaining.

The Valks went on to win, 87–77, and knock the reigning champs off their pedestal. Afterward, Williams half-joked about flocks of new fans potentially joining the Valks on the heels of their Finals berth:

“We ‘bout to have some bandwagoners because we ain’t getting no love all season,” Williams said in her presser. Yeah, she’s talking about you.

In one of the W’s most pivotal offseason stunners, Williams chose to sign with the Valkyries and return to the Bay, where she grew up. Following stints with the Sky and Storm, the French star enjoyed a career resurgence in her eighth campaign, averaging 14.4 points in the regular season. She then kicked things up a notch in the playoffs (the sixth of her career), where she’s averaging 22.7 points, 4.0 assists and 4.8 rebounds. Her most productive game actually came in the Valks’ sole postseason loss against the Wings in the first round when she put up a 36-burger.

It’s worth noting that the Valks aren’t your traditional WNBA Finals team. They lack a bona fide superstar, compared to the Breanna Stewarts or A’ja Wilsons of the league. In fact, this year’s Finals will be the first time since 2021 that the Liberty or the Aces won’t be battling for a trophy in the winner-take-all series.

Since the league’s inaugural season in 1997, every champion has without fail boasted a locked-in Hall of Famer on its roster. Before Stewie and A’ja, it was Elena Delle Donne, Maya Moore, Candace Parker, Diana Taurasi, Sheryl Swoopes. Williams, a two-time All-Star and two-time All-Defensive player, has been undeniably clutch for the Valks during the season and on their magical playoff run. But even she’s not at the level of those greats. Not yet.

As a side note, on a pure “vibes” level, Williams might give the best on-court interviews of any player in the W:

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Golden State’s fearless defense can win championships

The old adage rings true. Defense wins championships, and the Valkyries just might have the top-performing defensive unit in the league.

Natalie Nakase’s squad is stacked with All-Defensive talent, from three-time WNBA champ Kiah Stokes holding down the fort with her ferocious blocks to Williams’s quickness and length that has allowed her to notch 1.8 steals per game this playoffs. Everyone on the team can defend. And no one slacks off.

For one comparison on how good Golden State is on D: Five-time MVP A’ja Wilson has been tearing teams apart all season long. In the first-round series against the Fever, Wilson averaged 32.0 points and 11.7 rebounds while shooting 64.6% from the field. In the semifinals against the Valks, Wilson sputtered to 23.0 points and 7.0 rebounds while shooting 41.1% from the field.

The aptly nicknamed “Valkatraz” held Wilson and the Aces, owners of the league’s second highest-rated offense, to 77 points across 45 minutes in an elimination game. Let that sink in. The team’s all-around bullish defensive smarts are one of one right now.

MORE: WNBA Awards: How SI’s Voters Picked MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and More

They are the first billion-dollar franchise in women’s sports

What the Valkyries lack in franchise longevity, they make up for in money. Boatloads of it.

In 2026, Golden State became the first WNBA team (and first women’s pro sports team) to exceed $100 million in annual revenue, according to Sportico. The Valks’ Finals run could additionally push the franchise’s gross revenue past $130 million in a single season.

The Valks—not the Fever, Aces or Liberty—were the first women’s sports franchise to be valued at a billion dollars, and the team continues to sell out its home games at “Ballhalla” in its second year of existence.

Don’t count out the bench!

Depth, depth, depth.

Outside of Williams, the Valkyries don’t really have a lot of go-to scorers. But during their semifinal series sweep of the Aces, they proved they don’t need an automatic No. 2 or No. 3 option. Someone will rise to the challenge. In Game 1’s win, Williams scored a team-high 25 points; in Game 2, Tiffany “Tip” Hayes led the team with 21; in Game 3, Kayla Thornton stepped up as leading scorer with 18, good for her second-highest playoff career total since her run with the Wings in 2022.

The rest of the Valks’ roster is just a bunch of dawgs. Veronica Burton, last season’s Most Improved Player, has extended her unexpected career renaissance into Year 2 with Golden State. Kaitlyn Chen controls the aux and maintains the tempo in big games, serving as a double-sided Swiss Army utility player who can get a critical block or sink a clutch three whenever her number is called.

And let’s not forget about Janelle Salaün, this year’s unanimous Sixth Player of the Year. The French forward was a starter last year but adjusted to her new bench role in stride, averaging 12.7 points per game (ranked best among WNBA reserves who played at least 20 games). Salaün’s compatriot, Aminata Gueye, also enjoyed an emergence of late for making the most of her spare minutes against the Aces:

No weak links. Camaraderie and chemistry like no other. Their Finals matchup against another close-knit squad, the Dream, could be their toughest test yet.

Basketball sicko Natalie Nakase is ready to win it all

Last but not least, a few words of appreciation for perhaps the savviest coach in women’s basketball right now, Natalie Nakase. The 2025 Coach of the Year may have held a slight edge against the Aces having worked as an assistant on Becky Hammon’s staff for three seasons from 2022 to ‘24, during which they won two WNBA championships.

In their first playoff series against each other, the student eluded the teacher. Nakase’s “strength in numbers” thwarted Hammon’s once-invincible Big 3, and the more complete team won, fair and square.

Nakase suffered a health scare earlier in the playoffs when she suddenly collapsed in Game 3 of the Valks’ first-round series against the Wings. But she popped right back up and coached her team to a historic semifinal berth, and then a historic Finals berth. Only the W’s biggest prize remains, and if anyone can get the most out of her players in big-time moments, it’s Natalie Nakase.

“It’s bittersweet,” Nakase said of beating Hammon and the Aces. “... There’s so many people that I consider family, obviously Becky. She hired me. She’s the one who invited me into the W, the years I spent with her I knew I was going to learn a lot. Her X’s and O’s I think is one of the best in the world, men or women it doesn’t matter. She showed me that if you lead with your heart, your players will run through a wall for you.”

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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020 and has a bachelor’s in English and linguistics from Columbia University. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. She is a lifelong Liverpool fan who enjoys solving crossword puzzles and hanging out at her neighborhood dive bar in NYC.

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