{"id":650274,"date":"2026-05-05T22:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T22:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/650274\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T22:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T22:51:08","slug":"valkyries-gabby-williams-is-wnbas-most-impactful-addition-gms-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/650274\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries\u2019 Gabby Williams is WNBA\u2019s most impactful addition, GMs say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you are wondering how the WNBA views the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/valkyries\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Golden State Valkyries,<\/a> the league announced Tuesday the results of an annual 42-question survey sent to the general managers of its 15 teams. The Valkyries, following unprecedented first-year success, were a regular mention.<\/p>\n<p>By far, the Valkyries were awarded the superlative for best home-court advantage with 64% of first-place votes. The Indiana Fever (21%) and New York Liberty (14%) were also mentioned.<\/p>\n<p>All-Star forward Gabby Williams, a marquee Valkyries signing, was voted the player acquisition most likely to make the biggest impact, along with the Atlanta Dream\u2019s Angel Reese. Williams and Reese each received a 26% voting share for that question. Williams, a 2025 first-team All-Defensive selection, was also voted the league\u2019s best perimeter defender by a wide margin (60%) and finished a distant second (20%) for best defensive player, trailing reigning\u00a0MVP and Defensive Player of the Year A\u2019ja Wilson (53%). Wilson is a four-time MVP and three-time DPOY.<\/p>\n<p>The Valkyries were the runaway favorite for being the WNBA\u2019s best defensive team, hoarding a 50% share of votes, after they held opponents to the fewest points per game (76.3) of any team in their inaugural season.<\/p>\n<p>A credit to her emergence as a double-figure scorer over the past couple of seasons, Williams was also in the conversation for most versatile player, second only to two-time MVP and three-time WNBA champion Breanna Stewart.<\/p>\n<p>Valkyries head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/natalie-nakase\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Natalie Nakase,<\/a> the 2025 Coach of the Year, was listed third in the category of best coach. Longtime coaches Cheryl Reeve (Minnesota Lynx, 53%) and Becky Hammon (Las Vegas Aces, 40%), who have nine WNBA championships between them, finished atop the list. Nakase also received votes in the best motivator, best in-game adjustments and best offensive scheme categories.<\/p>\n<p>French forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/janelle-salaun\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Janelle Sala\u00fcn<\/a> also repped the Valkyries as the second-ranked international player in the survey with 20% of votes. New York\u2019s Jonquel Jones got 33%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you are wondering how the WNBA views the Golden State Valkyries, the league announced Tuesday the results&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,4648,1612,21319,12192,82,630],"class_list":["post-650274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-gabby-williams","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-janelle-salaun","tag-natalie-nakase","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}