2025 WNBA season preview: Golden State Valkyries

The moment that the ball gets tossed in the air at the Chase Center on the evening of May 16, a new era in WNBA history will begin, with the Golden State Valkyries representing the first expansion team to take the court since 2008. But the Valkyries are not a one-off.

This era of expansion will continue next season with Toronto and Portland and after that with a team and cities still to be determined.

But Golden State gets to go first. They will pave a pathway for others to follow or they could be a cautionary tale. The most interesting part is, we just won’t know which for a while.

What do we know about the Valkyries?

We know that Chase Center will be full of enthusiastic Bay Area fans (more than 10,000 season tickets have been sold) who want to get this franchise off to a great start.

We know that owner Joe Lacob has high expectations – a function of his trophy-filled ownership tenure with the Warriors and his willingness to support the big moves that can change the fortunes of a franchise. The day the team was announced in October of 2023, he said he wants a title in San Francisco in five years.

We know that general manager Ohemaa Nyanin has leaned into her international basketball experience to build an inaugural roster loaded with more international talent than any team in the league.

We know that at least few of those international players will miss part of the 2025 season participating in EuroBasket in late June, leaving Golden State either short-handed or making roster decisions with that in mind.

We know that head coach Natalie Nakase wants to lean into a defensive mindset, the safest way to mitigate for the time that it will take to build offensive cohesion and chemistry among a group of players who have never played together before.

And we know that competitive expectations for this new franchise will be tempered by the reality of expansion seasons (only one of 10 WNBA expansion franchised have had better than a .500 record in their first season), and those realities could set up the Valkyries up quite nicely to add a “face of the franchise” player in the 2026 free agency cycle, once a new Collective Barganing Agreement (CBA) is hammered out with the players or in next year’s WNBA Draft.

In the meantime there is much to build – a roster, a rotation, identity and culture.

“I definitely see culture forming,” said forward Monique Billings, chosen in December’s expansion draft. “I see us holding each other accountable for that culture – executing the details, bringing high energy and making sure we keep our standards high.”

Nakase, a first-time head coach, is the standard setter. She wants her team to play hard, to play fast and to play defense.

“We are definitely process driven,” Nakase said. “The non-neogiatiable for us right now is being very, very competitive.”

Golden State’s roster is a mix of WNBA veteran role players like Tiffany Hayes, Temi Fágbénlé, Kayla Thornton and Billings, up-and-comers like Kate Martin and Veronica Burton, and a crop of international talent including Belgian guard Julie Vanloo, Australian veteran Stephanie Talbot, and Italian forward Cecilia Zandalasini.

No player on the roster has a career scoring average in double digits.

Going by experience, Hayes – the WNBA’s 6th Player of the Year last season in Las Vegas – Fágbénlé, Thornton and Billings look like potential starters.

Fágbénlé, a gritty, defensive player, will fit nicely into Nakase’s plans. Thornton is coming off a championship season in New York and Billings knows the league’s interior players well, having played in Atlanta and Phoenix.

The biggest question marks will come at guard, where Vanloo – the 32-year-old who played 34 games for Washington last season, might be the starting point guard, but will also will be one of the players leaving for Eurobasket, as will 21-year-old rookie Carla Leite, giving a player like Burton, a strong perimeter defender who averaged more than 15 points a game in Australia this past season overseas, an opportunity to play valuable minutes.

Martin played just 11 minutes a game as a rookie in Las Vegas, but should be on line for a bigger role with her gritty play and her ability to hit big shots.

Zandalasini, a 44.3% 3-point shooter for the Minnesota Lynx last season, could provide offensive pop off the bench, as could Talbot, who has played 199 WNBA games in her career.

The team’s first-round draft pick, Justè Jocytè, the 19-year-old from Lithuania, is not yet signed. She may not be with the team this season, or she could join after EuroBasket to begin her American professional career.

Golden State will go quickly into the WNBA deep end. After two games against Los Angeles and one against the Washington Mystics, the Valkyries will end May with back-to-back road games against the defending champion New York Liberty, followed by games against runner-up Minnesota, a rebuilt Phoenix team and the Las Vegas Aces.

“I know I sound like a broken record, but I just want (everyone) to be themselves,” Nakase said.
Here is one more reality for Golden State. The Valkyries’ future isn’t likely going to be determined by what happens in 2025. It is a long-term project – or about 5 years, at least according to Lacob’s timeline.

Want more team-by-team previews for the 2025 WNBA season? Read them all here!