The Golden State Valkyries were expected to be the worst team in the WNBA by almost everyone. But apparently, they didn’t get the script before their inaugural season.
Professional athletes around the world like to claim that nobody believes in them, even when that is clearly not the case.
It’s a lot more fun to be branded as an underdog than to carry massive expectations – in fact, a lot of the best competitors are fueled by doubt and insist no one thinks they can accomplish their goals.
But there is perhaps no team in North American professional sports that could make this claim better than the Golden State Valkyries.
Coming into their inaugural WNBA season, not much was expected for the Valkyries. Out of the league’s 13 teams, the betting odds at every major market had them last and the vast majority of pundits picked them to finish last. Even our TRACR, which correctly forecasted the Atlanta Dream and Washington Mystics as better than many preseason expectations, had the Valkyries ranked as the worst team in the league heading into the season.
Yet, almost halfway through the season, the Valkyries are much better than that, sitting at 10-9 after an impressive win against the Indiana Fever and entering Wednesday as the seventh-best team, according to TRACR. The Valks have a long way to go to be considered title contenders, but they look much better than even the most optimistic external prognosticators could have predicted.
While the WNBA’s newest team has been much better on one side of the ball, it’s crucial to note how the Valkyries have managed to exceed expectations on both offense and defense.
Paint Protection
Let’s start with the Valkyries’ calling card this season: defense. They entered Wednesday leading the league in opponents’ field goal percentage and second in both defensive TRACR and points per game allowed.
The Valkyries aren’t relying on one player to do the heavy lifting. Veronica Burton leads the team with 1.2 defensive DRIP, which is the 14th-best mark in the league.
Rather, without a true superstar defender on the team, they’ve turned to strength in numbers. Of the Valkyries’ eight players who have played at least 200 minutes, only one has a D-DRIP worse than -0.3.
It’s similar to the strategy the Indiana Pacers employed while marching to the NBA Finals. They had nine players who played over 1,000 minutes in the regular season and seven of them had a D-DRIP of -0.3 or better.
With no weak links to hunt, opponents have had a tough time getting by the Valkyries off the dribble or generating easy baskets in the post. When they manage to create an advantage, the lane to the rim is never clear because head coach Natalie Nakase has apparently emphasized protecting the paint.
Any opponents that are marginal or worse shooters better get ready to be left open because the Valkyries are helping on any drive or post-up that has traction. They allow the most 3-point attempts in the league and teams shoot the seventh-best percentage on 3s against them. Teams shooting an average percentage on a lot of 3-point attempts isn’t optimal strategy unless there’s a successful tradeoff somewhere else in the numbers.
That tradeoff comes on points in the paint. The Valkyries allow a mere 28.2 points in the paint per game, which is 3.4 points fewer on average than the second-place Phoenix Mercury. That differential is greater than the difference between the Mercury and the seventh-place New York Liberty, meaning the Valks are in a class of their own in paint protection.
Again, they aren’t doing this with a dominant rim protector as much as a scheme with solid defenders who have bought in to the system. It’s caused some offenses that rely on penetration to short-circuit. If average shooters aren’t willing to take semi-open 3-pointers against the Valkyries, possessions come to a screeching halt.
The Valkyries don’t generate a ton of turnovers, but they play with active hands to force opponents to think twice about long passes while the defense recovers. They’ll lean into disregarding non-shooters who run pick-and-roll as much as any team in the league, sometimes even dropping their bigs and having their on-ball defenders go under the screen.
They obviously play with more urgency against the best off-the-dribble shooters in the league, but the Valkyries are content with mediocre shooters taking semi-open 3-pointers against them, as long as they’re held to one shot and don’t come as a result of paint penetration.
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The Valkyries have had success turning every game into a battle of 3-pointers, even though they haven’t shot them well. They’ve attempted the most 3s per game in the WNBA while shooting the second-worst percentage.
This hasn’t led to a productive offense. The Valkyries are 10th in the league in points per game and ninth in offensive TRACR. Burton has done a nice job setting up the offense to complement her defensive game, but she’s not a defense-bender. Kayla Thornton, their leading scorer and All-Star, is better used as a tip-of-the-spear offensive player than a creator for others. Tiffany Hayes, who has morphed back into a high-usage player after winning 2024 WNBA Sixth Player of the Year, is the closest the Valkyries have to a scoring threat who also gains advantages for her teammates.
It’s been fun to watch Hayes take on a bigger role in the offense at age 35 after a year off the bench. Even in her 13th season, her game is built primarily on speed. She’s a great shooter with a lightning quick-release and a quick first step that gets her by any out-of-position defender.
That was enough in a complementary role in Las Vegas last year, but Hayes has had to generate her own advantages more often this year and is utilizing patience, vision and veteran savvy to score in many different ways.
The Valkyries desperately need juice to complement Thornton’s scoring and Hayes has provided it. While the offense has been subpar, it’s important to remember the expectations for the team offensively coming into the season. The Valks entered the year without a single player on the roster who scored in double figures last year and were widely assumed to be far and away the worst offense in the league.
Several of the team’s players have seen a predictable downtick in efficiency while trying to play a bigger offensive role. But they’ve managed to cobble together enough offense by shooting a ton of 3s and grabbing offensive rebounds at the third-best rate in the league. By stealing points and possessions, it’s been good enough for a solid start to the season.
Maybe the league will figure out the Valkyries defense and maybe the lack of a true superstar will be too much to overcome down the stretch. There needs to be an infusion of offensive talent for the team to become a true contender, but it’s clear the Valkyries are in a much better position in their first season than anyone could have anticipated.
That in itself is a massive victory.
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WNBA Surprise: Why Was Everyone Wrong About the Golden State Valkyries? Opta Analyst.
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