Good news. The Golden State Valkyries still have a chance to win the WNBA title in this, just their second year of existence.

Even better. They get to play the game at an hour when cobwebs don’t cloud their eyes and when the biggest selling item at the concession booths is not Corn Flakes.

Thursday’s game, in retrospect, was hardly ever in doubt. The Valkyries sleep walked through the first half and were never really in the game in the second half. Made shots throughout this game were only a rumor.

The Valkyries might as well have played this game in pajamas. Even the well-rested home town Dream shot only 43% and were never in danger of losing the game.

The problem is greater than the mere fact that the Valkyries looked beat from the jump. The simple fact is this game should have never been allowed to have been played at 9:30 a.m. Pacific time.

What this did was make the WNBA look like the second-class citizens it has fought so hard to avoid being. In fact, in the last two years the W has gone from being a tax write off to being a big time money maker.

The Valkyries haven’t had an empty seat at the Chase Center since the opening tip off of 2025-26. Joe Lacob and Peter Guber paid what was then a record-setting expansion fee of $50 million in October of 2023. The franchise is valued between $850 million and $1 billion today.

I got out the old abacus and it tells me that their investment has shown a 1,600% increase. This contrasts with my own investment prowess, which generally goes from the price I paid to something roughly one step ahead of filing Chapter 11. If I bought a turkey farm, they’d call off Thanksgiving.

What it all says to me is that the WNBA deserves much more than a 9:30 a.m. start on a weekday morning, and something should have been done about moving a date (the hometown Hawks played Thursday night in the same arena), or finding another suitable site. This was Game 6 of the league finals and the TV viewers who watched the game did so over a bowl of granola and lukewarm coffee, in a toothpaste-stained bathrobe and mukluks. The WNBA deserves better, but a weak league office didn’t seem to complain too loudly.

The good news is, there’s a new commissioner to be decided upon and things should improve greatly. But this one was a gaffe that never should have been allowed to happen. It cheapened a very good product.

The bottom line is that Game 7 is on Halloween night in a building that’s been downright scary for visiting opponents. It’ll get all the hoopla it deserves. The two teams are extremely competitive, the atmosphere is raucous, and it’ll be played at a time when all of sport’s big kids play and not just before General Hospital and The Young and the Restless.

OK, I’ve made my point. Now let me go take a nap. I had to get up soooo early.

Brewers victorious

The Milwaukee Brewers are the champions of baseball, and just from this kid’s viewpoint, it was great television.

Milwaukee and Tampa Bay seem to be exactly what the Giants want to be. Solid defensively. A team that works pitchers by getting deep into counts. Smart on the bases. Selfless. Solid starting pitching — mostly home grown — and a bullpen that doesn’t evoke a fan’s response of “Oh no!”

That is to say what the Giants are missing when comparing franchises is, defense, pitch selection, remembering how many outs there are and not getting thrown out on the bases, a team-first attitude, starting pitching and a bullpen. Beyond that I can’t tell the difference.

Warriors rejuvenated

And, while the Golden State Valkyries look forward to a seventh and deciding game, their housemates, the Golden State Warriors are just getting started on a season that fell into the category of wishful thinking and over the last week has turned into a conversation about maybes, ifs, and why nots.

The catalyst for the renewal of at least a scrap of hope for this team is not the usual suspect. Oh sure, Steph Curry had a routine 44 points in Wednesday’s road win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. And that came on the heels of a game in which Steph didn’t miss a shot. But, the new Mr. Quote on this Warriors team, and the reason optimism is a word that is creeping into fan’s conversations, is Yaxel Lendeborg.

Here are a couple of things about Yaxel that are making people take notice. The first is that he can really play. Let me put it another way: He knows how to play.

Unlike most NBA draftees these days, Yaxel Lendeborg is not a kid. He’s 24 years old, no longer needs acne cream, and played college ball for four seasons. He’s a grown up.

The NBA is, by its nature, a league that embraces the new and shiny. If you are 19 years old, can run like a deer, jump out of the gym, and throw down a dunk from somewhere in the vicinity of the top of the backboard, you are a top commodity.

The prevailing thought in the NBA is that you’ll learn rest of the game on the job.

The Warriors dynasty was built on the shoulders of players who stayed in school — Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and that Curry guy to name just three. Yaxel is cut from that same cloth. He knows how to do more than just score. He knows how to play basketball.

And he’s the shot in the arm that when help in the form of Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody arrives after the first of the year, if the W’s can just hover around the .500 mark, this team can be more than a few old guys just trying to survive.

They could possibly be that team with the perfect blend of young and old that scares the hell out of its youthful run, jump and jam compatriots in the NBA.

Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native. Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.