When Joe Lacob stood at a podium in 2023 and declared his WNBA expansion team would win a championship within its first five years, it sounded like standard-issue, hubris-soaked bluster from a Silicon Valley billionaire.<\/p>\n
Turns out, he might have been sandbagging.<\/p>\n
Because the Golden State Valkyries haven\u2019t just arrived.<\/p>\n
No, they\u2019ve hacked the league.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only Year 2, and Valkyries games are a full-blown violet sensory overload. They\u2019re suffocating, relentless and menacing, empowered by a one-of-one home-court advantage.<\/p>\n
And after Thursday\u2019s down-to-the-wire win over Caitlin Clark\u2019s Indiana Fever, they are sure looking like legitimate title contenders.<\/p>\n
Even if they\u2019re not \u2014 Sunday\u2019s game against the defending champion Las Vegas Aces is an exceptional barometer \u2014 there\u2019s no doubt that right now, they\u2019re the absolute best show in the Bay.<\/p>\n
Because Thursday night at Chase Center wasn\u2019t just a basketball game. It was theater.<\/p>\n
Ok, maybe it was a gladiatorial battle, but what a time it was.<\/p>\n
While other expansion franchises have historically chased high-volume shooters to sell jerseys to casual fans, general manager Ohemaa Nyanin built a roster from spare parts and castoffs and told them to go break things.<\/p>\n
Other teams chose flash. The Valkyries chose violence.<\/p>\n
It was, and is, a brilliant strategy. So brilliant that it\u2019s hilarious nobody properly executed it before the Valks.<\/p>\n
Because shooters run hot and cold. The nightly variance in a league that shot 44 percent from the floor last season is a mathematical nightmare. Prioritizing offense as an expansion team makes you unreliable, flaky and fickle, even if you do it right.<\/p>\n
But defense? Defense doesn\u2019t take nights off. Defense travels. Defense ruins game plans and wins games in a league where the toughest come out on top.<\/p>\n
And boy, can the Valkyries play some defense.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re less of a basketball team and more of an unyielding wall of limbs and bad intentions.<\/p>\n
Golden State swatted 11 shots Thursday, a league-wide single-game high for the season.<\/p>\n
At the center of the mayhem was Veronica Burton.<\/p>\n
On a floor featuring superstars like Clark and fellow top pick Aliyah Boston, Burton was the best player in the building. In the best game of her WNBA career, she dropped 25 points, grabbed six boards and blocked five shots.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s done more than just maintain her breakout form from 2025. She\u2019s leveled up.<\/p>\n
Her vicious block on Clark with seven minutes left nearly lifted the roof off the place. We\u2019re talking peak Steph Curry avalanche levels of decibels. Did the Warriors have a single home moment that reached that level this past season?<\/p>\n
It was so rattling that Clark refused to talk to the media afterward.<\/p>\n
Skipping the podium after an ordinary performance is a tough look, but when you spend 40 minutes stuck in a violet blender, a quiet ride to the airport sounds pretty good \u2014 league rules be damned.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019d be enough of a story, but there\u2019s something larger at play here.<\/p>\n
Because there\u2019s also Gabby Williams, the crown jewel of the Valks\u2019 first real offseason.<\/p>\n
She fits the team\u2019s defensive ethos perfectly, but she provides something much bigger: validation.<\/p>\n
Think of her like the Valkyries\u2019 Andre Iguodala.<\/p>\n
Bringing the Bay Area native home feels oh-so-similar to when Lacob convinced Iguodala to join the Warriors in 2013. He validated a franchise\u2019s bold, arrogant trajectory. Williams, who had 19 points Thursday and was the primary defender on Clark down the stretch, does the exact same thing in purple.<\/p>\n
And the frantic finish to Thursday\u2019s nationally televised game (as all Fever games are this season) proved her worth.<\/p>\n
The Valkyries blew an 11-point lead, letting Indiana claw ahead 82-81 with three minutes left. The tension inside Chase Center was thick enough to chew.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the defense bowed its neck.<\/p>\n
Golden State forced back-to-back Clark turnovers in the final 90 seconds.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t a clinical masterpiece \u2014 Williams missed three late free throws and Lexie Hull bought a whistle on Burton with a spectacular, Oscar-worthy flop \u2014 but when Golden State needed a stop, the Valkyries suffocated Boston on the final possession.<\/p>\n
Because this still feels like the beginning of what the Valkyries are building, and they are way ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n
They call Chase Center \u201cBallhalla\u201d when the Valks are playing. It\u2019s a cute, clever marketing line, but it understates the rabid hostility inside. Is this a street fight or a street party?<\/p>\n
Either way, it\u2019s a great time.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019d be remiss not to mention the color:<\/p>\n
That violet hue is everywhere now, transforming from an expansion color scheme into a regional identity. I expect you\u2019ll see more and more of it in the weeks to come.<\/p>\n
When Clark, the sport\u2019s anointed savior, walked out, she was greeted with a wall of ferocious boos. The crowd didn\u2019t relent.<\/p>\n
The team matched that energy on the hardwood.<\/p>\n
Did a desperate fan base create this juggernaut, or did a relentless team give rise to this fandom? It doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s inescapable now.<\/p>\n
In a league where congeniality is celebrated, and everyone looks out for each other and the sisterhood of women\u2019s sports, something different and, frankly, better is happening in the Bay:<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s a rival,\u201d Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase said after Thursday\u2019s game. \u201cGive me 14 rivals.\u201d<\/p>\n
You heard her: The rest of the WNBA is officially on notice.<\/p>\n
Because the Valkyries aren\u2019t just playing for a nice sophomore-year playoff seed and a slow build towards the top.<\/p>\n
No, they\u2019re coming for the crown, right now, and they don\u2019t care who they have to bruise to get it.<\/p>\n
Get on board or get run over.<\/p>\n