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The Golden State Valkyries shattered expectations in their inaugural season, immediately emerging as a force around the Bay Area.
Natalie Nakase turned a roster of young players and WNBA castoffs into a playoff team, and in September, she was honored as the league’s Coach of the Year.
Before she was crowned The Standard’s Sportsperson of the Year, sports editor Kerry Crowley and columnist Tim Kawakami discussed the candidates and detailed their rationale for selecting Nakase.
Crowley: OK, Tim, for the first time ever, The Standard is selecting a Bay Area Sportsperson of the Year. I think there are a lot of worthy candidates but not necessarily an obvious pick. How would you narrow down the possibilities?
Kawakami: For years, I’ve started this kind of conversation with two names to beat — Stephen Curry and Kyle Shanahan — and now I’ll add a new member of the Bay Area Annual Headliners: Brock Purdy. It’s either one of these three … or you’ve got to beat out all of them to get my vote for BASPOTY.
As I really think about it, I don’t think this is quite the year for any of the Big Three, with the Warriors seesawing and Purdy missing eight games. (Though Purdy sure could turn 2026 into his year by early February.) So I’m looking for other candidates now. Any fast-rising nominations?
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Oh, and I’ll add that every year could be a Shanahan Year, especially this one, with all the tearing down, building back up, and true overachievement. But I want to see everything that goes on next offseason — the 49ers are set up for some major moves if they want to take a large bite in free agency — instead of defaulting to Shanahan this year. Though he’s almost never a bad selection.
Crowley: It wouldn’t shock me if we have a fourth headliner in 2026 or 2027, and that’s rising Sharks star Macklin Celebrini. But it’s probably too early to consider the 19-year-old phenom right now, especially because San Jose hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2018-19 season and might miss the postseason again as Celebrini and a young core begin to jell.
Speaking of playoffs, the best sports story of the year in the Bay Area was the sudden rise of the Golden State Valkyries, who exceeded every realistic expectation for an expansion franchise and made the postseason in Year 1. The Valkyries sold out all of their home games and turned Chase Center into a destination during the summer months, but it would probably be a stretch to single out any of Golden State’s players. We might be better off picking someone from the franchise’s leadership, whether it be owner Joe Lacob, GM Ohemaa Nyanin, or the rookie coach, Natalie Nakase.
Kawakami: Celebrini is an excellent option — and that could look prescient if he has a major role in a Team Canada gold medal coming up in Milan. But we can wait on that one, at least until he’s out of his teenage years! If Celebrini turns the Sharks into a must-watch team throughout the Bay Area, he’ll deserve every plaudit. (opens in new tab)
Now the Valkyries’ candidates … are definitely impossible to deny. In a lot of ways, this was the Year of the Valkyries in the Bay Area — and throughout the sports landscape. You’re right, I think this is the right place to acknowledge and appreciate the metaphysical force of what happened in Chase Center for those games. Which, as Warriors players dropping by noted, was much louder and happier than most Warriors games in the same building.
The players deserve the credit for this. You can get the fans with great marketing meeting the moment, but you can’t get that sound unless the fans feel connected to the players. And Kayla Thornton, Veronica Burton, Cecilia Zandalasini, and the rest were remarkable. There will never be another inaugural year for the Valkyries, and the players rose to that occasion.
But in my mind, Nakase was the focal point of it all. Not because she sought out the limelight — if you know her, you know Nakase just wants to coach, and the attention is just something to endure. But that made the journey even more authentic for the entire franchise. You had to fight to win minutes for the Valkyries, and that translated to one of the toughest teams I’ve ever watched. Which fused with the nuclear voltage of the crowd into something stunning. Nakase doesn’t want to be singled out for this, and that means it’s right.
Crowley: So we have our choice: It’s Natalie Nakase, who accomplished one of the most difficult tasks in all of sports and built a winning culture overnight.
From the outset of the season, the Valkyries had an unmistakable identity. They played hard-nosed defense, they consistently out-hustled opponents, and they were going to be a nightmare to play at Chase Center.
That alone wasn’t going to be enough to turn a roster of WNBA castoffs into a playoff team, but it provided a heck of a foundation. The identity allowed the Valkyries to overcome early-season roster shakeups due to EuroBasket, rookie growing pains, and the loss of Thornton, who suffered a season-ending knee injury at the All-Star break.
Tim, you touched on this already, but I think it’s worth emphasizing that one of the elements that made Nakase’s journey so authentic was her competitive nature. I’ve been around a lot of athletes and coaches who love winning, but she’s one of the people who despises losing even more than she enjoys winning. Sometimes those types of coaches come off as defiant — Jim Harbaugh comes to mind — but I think that approach tends to lead to a maniacal obsession with details, which served the Valkyries extraordinarily well.
Kawakami: I think she’d love the Harbaugh comp! Which, as you know, is something I believe is worth full respect. The next few years are going to be interesting — obviously, let’s see if they can settle this labor situation and then if rich teams like the Valkyries will be granted more opportunities to pluck away stars.
There will be new players. Maybe more talented players. We can include Juste Jocyte, last year’s first-round pick. Will that change the mood and spirit of the team? Some things will change. Nakase’s used to coaching superstars from her time in Las Vegas. I don’t think she’ll have any problems with an major upgrade in talent on the Valkyries’ roster. But maybe some of the special vibes will be altered. And we’ll see how Nakase coaches through that.
But just that we can discuss the Nakase Energy with this team after one thunderous year is proof of the impact the Valkyries had on 2025 and how fascinating it will be to watch how this goes into 2026, 2027, and on.
And honorable mentions:
• Buster Posey made the biggest moves of 2025 — we’ll be analyzing the effects of the trade for Rafael Devers for years and the hiring of Tony Vitello probably for longer than that. I appreciate gutsy decision-makers. Now we get to see if Posey was right.
• Christian McCaffrey isn’t having his greatest individual year, but I don’t know if he’s ever been more important to a potential Super Bowl run, especially in the eight games that Purdy missed. He also seemed to relax a bit into a true leadership role in the locker room.
• Steve Kerr set this up by declining to discuss a contract beyond this season. The clock is ticking. The Warriors are mediocre. Every minor event feels like it could signal the end of this run; every revival is like an extra breath of air while paddling for your life. All coming to a head by April … or set to be extended at least one more year.