{"id":302377,"date":"2026-05-06T09:43:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/302377\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:43:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:43:21","slug":"valkyries-gm-breaks-silence-over-flaujae-johnson-marta-suarez-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/302377\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries GM breaks silence over Flau’jae Johnson, Marta Suarez trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time since the April 13 WNBA draft, Golden State Valkyries<\/a> general manager Ohemaa Nyanin<\/a> \u2014 speaking at the team\u2019s media day on Tuesday \u2014 provided more insight into the Valkyries\u2019 surprising decisions that night and beyond.<\/p>\n

The Valkyries selected LSU star Flau\u2019jae Johnson with the No. 8 pick, then traded her to Seattle for the first pick of the second round, at No. 16, and a second-round pick in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At No. 16, they selected forward Marta Suarez, who had played at both Cal and TCU. But last Saturday, the team waived Suarez, adding to the puzzlement around the transaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision-making around the draft had a lot to do with cap flexibility,\u201d Nyanin said, referring to the league\u2019s salary cap. \u201cWe thought we had the opportunity to potentially sign another athlete.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job, specifically, is to make sure that we maintain understanding of what\u2019s happening today and what could happen in the future. And so the flexibility is really needed to be able to withstand whatever could happen in the future is something I hold dear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The indication is that the Valkyries were pursuing another free agent, and had concerns about the cap implications of both a top-eight pick and another top free agent. When asked on draft night specifically about salary cap implications, Nyanin said, \u201cI don\u2019t talk or comment about the salary cap.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, answering a question about waiving Suarez, who could now potentially be re-signed as a developmental player, Nyanin referred to the league\u2019s new contract, which adds two developmental slots for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy we waived a specific athlete is part of understanding the new CBA,\u201d Nyanin said. \u201cThere are a lot of things that we need to take into consideration when it comes to the status of an athlete, when it comes to years of experience, etc.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more to come. There\u2019s a lot more to think through in the next 48 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final roster cutdown is Thursday afternoon. The Valkyries open their season the next day in Seattle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time since the April 13 WNBA draft, Golden State Valkyries general manager Ohemaa Nyanin \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[18739,104121,101,103,102,104,106,105,127,8859],"class_list":["post-302377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-marta-suarez","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sports","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}