{"id":626247,"date":"2026-05-06T05:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/626247\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:27:10","slug":"valkyries-gm-ohemaa-nyanin-breaks-silence-on-flaujae-johnson-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/626247\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries GM Ohemaa Nyanin breaks silence on Flau’jae Johnson Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND \u2014 It\u2019s been 22 days since the Valkyries\u2019 stunning draft night trade<\/a> that sent Flau\u2019jae Johnson<\/a> to Seattle for former Cal standout Marta Suarez<\/a> and a 2028 second-round pick.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, general manager Ohemaa Nyanin finally broke her silence about her thinking behind the deal at the Valkyries\u2019 media day. The explanation she offered didn\u2019t pull the curtain back all the way on the swap, but gave some insight to why the trade went down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision making around the draft had a lot to do with cap flexibility,\u201d general Ohemaa Nyanin said. \u201cWe had the opportunity, or we thought we had the opportunity, to potentially sign another athlete. My job, very specifically, is to make sure that we maintain understanding of what\u2019s happening today and then what could happen in the future. The flexibility that is needed to really be able to withstand whatever could happen in the future is something that I hold dear to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, with the regular season set to begin on Friday night and Johnson in a Seattle uniform, Nyanin\u2019s long-awaited answer has arrived three days after Golden State waived<\/a> Suarez.<\/p>\n

\"GoldenGolden State Valkyries general manager Ohemaa Nyanin takes questions during their media day at the Sephora Performance Center in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, May 5, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Suarez has since cleared waivers and is now eligible to return to the Valkyries on a developmental contract. However, Nyanin did not explicitly say the team would bring Suarez back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of athletes are in consideration for these two developmental spots because they are new,\u201d Nyanin said. \u201cHow we use them is something that we\u2019re still kind of in conversations about. We want to definitely make sure that we aren\u2019t signing athletes, waiving them, signing them and releasing them. That\u2019s not the type of organization that we are. So we want to be very thoughtful and intentional as to how we use these spots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nyanin did not mention who the Valkyries would have tried to sign with the extra cap space, but said the draft night situation was fluid and that she wanted to keep some flexibility to make a move if one had presented itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a day-to-day basis, and with the condensed nature, there were so many opportunities and so many variables in order to make the decisions that needed to be made at that one time,\u201d Nyanin said. \u201cI was in conversations with a lot of different athletes at the time to then try to figure out how to make a decision on that night and what we were going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Valkyries saved nearly $40,000 by trading down from the eighth pick to the 16th.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On draft night, Nyanin had repeatedly declined to explain the reasoning behind the deal, at one point telling reporters she needed to \u201ctake a beat\u201d before responding, citing exhaustion and a desire to be \u201cthoughtful\u201d when discussing players\u2019 abilities.\u00a0 She also declined to say whether salary cap considerations had factored into the move, telling reporters flatly, \u201cI don\u2019t talk or comment about salary cap.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

ESPN reported on draft night that the trade between Golden State and Seattle was agreed to before Johnson was initially selected by Golden State with the eighth overall pick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nyanin further clarified that the pick had nothing to do with Johnson and was more about the value of the draft slot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I would say is the timeline for our draft pick was not necessarily to trade one person or the other. Going into the draft, we had a lot of contingency plans as to what it is that we were looking for,\u201d Nyanin said. \u201cI also had had a lot of conversations with different teams to figure out what trade options were, and then at the time when we figured out that this was a trade that we wanted to make.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trade was for the rights of the number eight pick, for the number 16 pick and a future second. No athlete was considered at that moment in terms of us trading an athlete at number eight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Valkyries have until 2 p.m. on Thursday to finalize their roster. They have not yet filled their developmental roster spots and still have to make cuts to their roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re considering is to create the best team possible to start the season,\u201d Nyanin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 It\u2019s been 22 days since the Valkyries\u2019 stunning draft night trade that sent Flau\u2019jae Johnson to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[10832,402,3805,2356,10833,1915,4804,10831,14059,2558,5415,36930,10834,10835,5413,10836,10837,5284,10838,10839,10840,10841,10842,5414,10843,99,434],"class_list":["post-626247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-alameda-county","tag-basketball","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-contra-costa-county","tag-east-bay","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-inside-sports","tag-lake-county","tag-latest-headlines","tag-marin-county","tag-mendocino-county","tag-monterey-county","tag-napa-county","tag-north-bay","tag-peninsula","tag-san-benito-county","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-county","tag-san-mateo-county","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-santa-cruz-county","tag-solano-county","tag-sonoma-county","tag-south-bay","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}