{"id":885636,"date":"2026-10-17T15:20:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T15:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/885636\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T15:20:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T15:20:29","slug":"the-valkyries-visionaries-3-women-who-built-a-finals-team-from-scratch-in-2-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/885636\/","title":{"rendered":"The Valkyries\u2019 visionaries: 3 women who built a Finals team from scratch in 2 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years ago, on an afternoon she remembers vividly, Ohemaa Nyanin sat beside Natalie Nakase as the Golden State Valkyries introduced Nakase as their first head coach.<\/p>\n

Nyanin, the expansion franchise\u2019s GM and employee No. 2, felt a hand gently graze her shoulder. It belonged to Nakase, who spoke with conviction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not going to let me fail,\u201d Nakase declared, turning toward her new boss, whom she\u2019d met only months earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time, the public-facing gesture was as much a pledge as an act of faith. The women knew little about each other and even less about what was to come.<\/p>\n

That was October 2024, when the Valkyries\u2019 roster was a blank page and their identity was still unwritten. The vision for a franchise forged in Golden State\u2019s relentless pursuit of excellence was only that: a vision held by trailblazing women who stood hand-in-hand at the edge of the unknown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This month, the Valkyries beat the defending champion Las Vegas Aces 87-77 in overtime on the road. As the final buzzer blared, Golden State completed a sweep and, in only its second season, earned a trip to the WNBA Finals. On the baseline, amid the chaos around them, Nyanin and Jess Smith, the team\u2019s president and employee No. 1<\/a>, pulled each other into a lingering hug.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI get emotional thinking about it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI have a front-row seat to how hard [Nyanin] works, how diligent she\u2019s been, and how much care she puts into every layer of this organization. She knows every detail of everything and makes sure that people have what they need. This roster, this culture, exists because of her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nyanin knew what laying the foundation with a strong culture could lead to. Perhaps not how quickly it would happen \u2014 no one could have predicted that. But she knew. Nakase knew too. And Smith, in her own lane of the organization, carried that same belief from her first day in February 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Nyanin, Nakase, and Smith pose for a photo together at the opening of the Golden State Valkyries\u2019 training facility in Oakland on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades\/The Standard<\/p>\n

Golden State owner Joe Lacob \u2014 who\u2019d had an affinity for women\u2019s basketball for more than 30 years <\/a>and a dream of another Bay Area team since his San Jose Lasers folded in 1998 \u2014 knew from the second his ownership group\u2019s expansion bid was granted that he\u2019d commit to placing women at the forefront of the leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt that was an important statement,\u201d Lacob told The Standard. \u201cIt\u2019s a women\u2019s sports league, and there are not just great women players but great women executives and coaches who deserve the opportunity too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

These days, Lacob enjoys gloating about his hires. Deservedly so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nyanin, Nakase, and Smith are a trio of former deputies who, with the Valkyries, seized the opportunity to chart their own course. The convergence of the three in one place has made magic in Golden State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no \u2018Well, this is what I\u2019ve done for 15 years, and this is my tried and true,\u2019\u201d Smith said. \u201cInstead, we came in with an incredible knowledge base, a network between the two of us, and more of the question of one another: \u2018How are we going to do this differently?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In Smith, Lacob tapped a key architect behind the most commercially successful startup in women\u2019s sports to that point \u2014 the NWSL\u2019s Angel City FC, founded in 2020. In Nyanin, Lacob and Smith found a strategist, a builder, a soft-hearted human, and a clear-eyed basketball intellect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lacob\u2019s Golden State staff conducted a search far and wide, then brought back a few candidates to interview in his Peninsula home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t simply searching for a basketball brain. He was looking for someone who knew the game\u2019s far-reaching networks, who could identify talent before it fully blossomed, could envision what a player might become in the right environment, and would put a high-character culture at the center of the organization.<\/p>\n

\"ANakase won the WNBA Coach of the Year award in 2025. | Source: Sean Fan\/The Standard<\/p>\n

Before leading the Valkyries, Nyanin spent a decade mastering the art of being a second in command \u2014 five years with USA Basketball\u2019s women\u2019s national team program, then five more in the New York Liberty front office. Her personal story too was alluring: a childhood that carried her across Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Chile, the Philippines, and suburban Maryland, and a career pursued against her family\u2019s wishes (her dad wanted her to be a doctor), followed by their eventual embrace of her calling.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was really the obvious choice for me,\u201d Lacob said.<\/p>\n

Today<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

3 days ago<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a><\/p>\n

Thursday, Oct. 8<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe job she has done is unbelievable. Un-be-lievable,\u201d he continued. \u201cShe should get more credit than she\u2019s gotten \u2014 to build a roster that fits your coach, to find all of those international players, a strategy that no one else had quite executed the same way is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nyanin handpicked the team\u2019s expansion roster with a little bit of everything \u2014 unprotected castoffs, under-the-radar free agents, international talent, and high-upside risks in the college draft \u2014 as the franchise became the first expansion team in league history to reach the playoffs in its debut season.<\/p>\n

Then she weathered an offseason unlike any other. With the WNBA navigating landmark collective bargaining negotiations with the players union and a watershed moment for the sport unfolding alongside an extraordinarily compressed calendar, Nyanin\u2019s solution was just as intentional as it was in her first go-around.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s obviously a pioneer that will be talked about forever when it comes to roster constructions or women\u2019s basketball and the cards that she was dealt,\u201d Smith said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Re-signing a league-high nine players, Nyanin wove a thread of continuity and placed a bet on the player development system she and Nakase had fostered. Every addition \u2014 the biggest splash in All-Defensive first-team Gabby Williams<\/a>, the biggest surprise in starting center Kiah Stokes, the last-minute savior in French rookie Aminata Gueye, signed in the final week of the regular season<\/a> \u2014 was a box checked as part of a deliberate plan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething I\u2019ve talked about in the past is being a product of your experiences,\u201d Nyanin said of assembling her team \u2014 one that, on the eve of the WNBA Finals, still reflects a collection of chippy underdogs. \u201cNot allowing \u2018no\u2019 to be the end of your story, really trying to find ways to problem solve and pivot. I would say wanting to buy into a system and really wanting to be connected, not just on the court but off the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ASmith\u2019s Valkyries are the first women\u2019s sports franchise to generate more than $100 million in annual revenue. | Source: Godofredo A. V\u00e1squez\/Associated Press<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a system, a culture, that Nyanin and Nakase pride themselves on. They met only two years ago yet are completely in sync in their leadership \u2014 though they admit the detail-oriented collaboration took time to blend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are both very strong-willed in terms of things, and I think there were certainly some disagreements early on,\u201d Lacob said. \u201cMaybe nothing big, but I think it took them a while to totally be on the same page. \u201cBut I view them as being very much on the same page, certainly today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Nyanin met her future head coach, Nakase\u2019s preparation<\/a> \u2014 plus the expletives she let fly \u2014 was what struck her most.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe showed me who she was from the jump, and I just thought that was really endearing, because our athletes need people who are going to be open, honest, direct, kind, provide clarity, and also be authentic,\u201d Nyanin said. \u201cShe presented herself as if this was her calling.\u201d From there, the two bonded quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just so proud of Ohemaa and Natalie in this moment,\u201d Smith said, preparing Golden State\u2019s business empire for a Finals appearance \u2014 the president sits atop a billion-dollar franchise that brought in $100 million in revenue in this year alone<\/a>. \u201cTo watch them shine in Year 2 and make so apparent what they\u2019ve built together is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you turn a vision into a Finals-bound franchise? Nakase was asked this at Golden State\u2019s Sephora Performance Center, as the Valkyries began their week-long preparation.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, just hire good people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two years ago, on an afternoon she remembers vividly, Ohemaa Nyanin sat beside Natalie Nakase as the Golden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[4389,4804,130774,144292,60205,60206,99,60207,434,1765],"class_list":["post-885636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-gabby-williams","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-jess-smith","tag-joe-lacob","tag-natalie-nakase","tag-ohemaa-nyanin","tag-sports","tag-veronica-burton","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885636","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=885636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}