They do not appear in the league’s top-10 scoring leaders. Their best player ranks tenth in assists. Their center is currently in concussion protocol, and their most explosive young forward missed their last game with a sore knee. And yet, as of August 15, 2026, the Golden State Valkyries sit at 24-9, hold the second overall seed in the WNBA, and have every media analyst in the league quietly terrified of drawing them in the first round of the playoffs.
In just their second year of existence, the Valkyries are not supposed to be this good. The numbers say so. Basketball-Reference projects them at an Expected W-L of 23-10 — a model that accounts for schedule strength and margin of victory — and Golden State is outperforming it. Swish Appeal put it plainly: “No one wants to face them in the playoffs.”
This is the story of how a franchise that did not exist three years ago built the best defense in the WNBA, earned a prime-time back-to-back against the Minnesota Lynx, and quietly positioned itself as the most complete team in the league — without a single player averaging 20 points a game.
A Franchise Built to Win Now — and Later
The Golden State Valkyries were announced as the WNBA’s 13th franchise on October 5, 2023, as the league’s affiliate of the Golden State Warriors. Owner Joe Lacob, never known for patience, set a five-year championship timeline from the very beginning. It sounded like the kind of thing ambitious ownership groups always say. Two years in, it sounds like a blueprint actually being followed.
Their inaugural 2025 season was already historic. The Valkyries went 23-21, set a WNBA record for wins by a first-year expansion team, and became the first expansion franchise in league history to qualify for the playoffs in their debut season. They sold out all 22 regular-season home games at Chase Center during that inaugural 2025 season — which the fanbase has branded “Ballhalla” — and lost in the first round to a very good Minnesota Lynx team.
The previous standard for WNBA expansion teams was set in 1998 by the Detroit Shock, who finished 17-13 in their first season but missed the playoffs. The 2008 Atlanta Dream went 4-30 in their debut. The Valkyries did not just clear the bar — they vaulted it.
Now, in Year 2, they are doing something no expansion team in WNBA history has done before: threatening to be the league’s best team.
The Coach Who Changed Everything
It starts with Natalie Nakase, and anyone who argues otherwise is not paying attention.
Nakase is the WNBA’s first Asian American head coach. She spent a decade in various capacities with the Los Angeles Clippers organization, then joined Becky Hammon’s staff with the Las Vegas Aces, where she won two WNBA championships in 2022 and 2023. When the Valkyries hired her in October 2024 as their inaugural head coach, she had never run a WNBA bench as the primary decision-maker. She won Coach of the Year in her first season.
Her philosophy is not complicated. Defense. Effort. Communication. And one guiding standard she has made clear to anyone who will listen: “We are here to win. Championships are the standard.”
In 2026, with a deeper roster and a full season of trust built with her players, Nakase has pushed harder. Reports indicate she is more comfortable challenging her team, demanding more, and those demands are being met. She was also named a USA Basketball assistant for the 2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup — a recognition that her peers in the sport view her as one of the game’s premier coaching minds.
Her philosophy has produced tangible, measurable results. The Valkyries play the slowest pace in the WNBA — 74.7 possessions per 48 minutes — committing just 10.5 turnovers per game, the best mark in the league. They are not trying to outscore you. They are trying to exhaust you.
The Best Defense in the League, by Every Metric
The numbers are not subtle. The Valkyries allow 76.9 points per game — first among all 15 WNBA teams. Their defensive rating of 102.9 ranks first in the league. Their net rating of +8.9 ranks second. The 2026 WNBA GM Survey had them voted the league’s best defensive team, receiving 50 percent of the votes. The Atlanta Dream, who are second, got 36 percent.
The most striking illustration of what this defense can do came during a franchise-record 9-game winning streak in July. Over that stretch — which included seven wins over .500 opponents and a perfect 5-game road trip, only the second time in WNBA history a team has accomplished the latter — Golden State held opponents to a combined 69.2 points per game. In a league where the average team scores in the upper 80s, the Valkyries were suffocating.
Their home-court advantage is the most feared in the league. Sixty-four percent of general managers voted Golden State first in that category — more than three times the votes received by the Indiana Fever, who came in second. When Chase Center becomes Ballhalla, it is not a figurative description of the atmosphere. Opponents know it.
No Stars, All Contributors
The Valkyries’ roster is structured around a deliberate philosophy: no one player carries the team, which means no single player can be schemed away. It is a roster built for playoff basketball, not highlight reels.
Veronica Burton is the floor general and the heartbeat of the franchise. The 2025 WNBA Most Improved Player is averaging 12.3 points, 5.5 assists, and 3.5 rebounds per game while starting all 33 contests. Her team-best plus/minus of +214 is not a typo — it represents a margin so wide it borders on absurd. She ranks 10th in the WNBA in assists. She is not flashy. She is essential.
Gabby Williams, signed from Seattle in the offseason, is the team’s leading scorer — she was averaging 15.8 points per game as of early July 2026 — and brings 1.6 steals per game on the defensive end. Nakase has called her “one of the best two-way players in the world.” That description holds up to scrutiny.
Janelle Salaün is the breakout story of the season. The second-year forward from France is averaging 13.1 points on 39.8 percent shooting from three — the best mark on the team — and was voted the second-best international player in the WNBA by general managers in the 2026 GM Survey, trailing only Jonquel Jones. She is currently out with knee soreness, which is among the team’s most pressing health concerns heading into a crucial August stretch.
Kayla Thornton is the Valkyries’ first-ever All-Star and the team’s all-around glue player. She scored the franchise’s first basket in WNBA history. In 2025, she averaged 14.0 points and 7.0 rebounds per game — the kind of quietly indispensable production that only becomes obvious when she is not there.
Kiah Stokes anchors the post on defense, averaging 1.9 blocks per game — among the league’s best. She is a three-time WNBA champion who brought championship culture from Las Vegas, and she is currently in concussion protocol. Her availability for the next stretch of games is unknown, and it is the single most important injury situation for the franchise.
And then there is Tiffany Hayes. On August 12, with both Stokes and Salaün unavailable, the 36-year-old veteran came off the bench against the Chicago Sky and posted a season-high 22 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals in a 91-71 win — the game in which Golden State officially surpassed its 2025 regular season win total with its 24th victory. Afterward, Hayes captured what this team is in a single quote: “We know each other’s tendencies now. We’re still learning each other. But at the end of the day, I think we’re ahead of the game right now.”
A day earlier, on August 9 in Los Angeles, Cecilia Zandalasini went 5-for-5 from three-point range for 15 points and 7 rebounds in an 84-78 win over the Sparks. On any given night, this team can pull production from a different source — and that depth is what makes them genuinely dangerous in a seven-game series.
The Numbers That Define the Season
The Valkyries are on pace for approximately 30 wins — a milestone that, by 2026, has been reached by several elite WNBA squads, including the 2023 Las Vegas Aces, the 2024 New York Liberty, and multiple teams in 2025. Reaching that mark would place Golden State firmly in that championship-caliber tier. Their magic number to clinch a playoff berth stands at 1 as of August 15. Their road record of 10-5 represents a dramatic leap from their 2025 campaign and signals real team maturity, not a product of scheduling convenience.
They have gone 8-2 in their last 10 games and are riding a 5-game winning streak. CBS Sports had them ranked first in their WNBA Power Rankings in late July. That ranking reflected the reality that at full strength, with their defense operating as it has been, no team in the league is better built for the moment that matters most.
The challenge ahead is substantial. The Minnesota Lynx — 28-7 and holding the overall top seed by 3.0 games — visit Chase Center on August 19 before Golden State travels to Target Center on August 24. Those back-to-back games against the Lynx represent the most important regular-season moment in franchise history. Win both, and the conversation about the #1 seed becomes very real. Lose both, and the gap widens with limited time to recover.
The broader league landscape is competitive. The Eastern Conference is tightly contested, with Indiana (22-12), Atlanta (21-12), and New York (22-14) all capable of making noise in the playoffs. Las Vegas (24-11) remains dangerous in the West, powered by A’ja Wilson’s 26.3 points per game. The Valkyries went 1-6 against the Aces and Liberty combined in 2025 — going 1-3 against Las Vegas and 0-3 against New York — a documented weakness that Nakase has clearly worked to address, but one that only the postseason will truly measure.
What History Says — and What Golden State Is Writing
No expansion team in WNBA history made the playoffs in Year 1 and became a top-2 seed in Year 2. The Valkyries are doing exactly that. The comparison points are thin because no team has done this before. The 2008 Atlanta Dream went 4-30 in their first season and 18-16 in their second, which was considered a dramatic improvement. The context makes what Golden State is doing feel almost disorienting.
Joe Lacob set a five-year championship timeline. The Valkyries are two years in. The timeline no longer sounds ambitious — it sounds conservative.
The roster is not perfect. Stokes’ health is a genuine concern. Salaün’s knee needs monitoring. The team’s two notable injury absences on August 12 produced a Tiffany Hayes masterclass, which is encouraging, but sustained postseason success will require the full complement of contributors. The 2025 playoff loss to Minnesota still stings and offers a cautionary reference point.
But consider what Nakase has built: a team with the best defense in the league, the fewest turnovers, the most feared home court, a franchise-record winning streak that included a feat only one other team in WNBA history had accomplished, and a group of players who distribute production so evenly that no one opponent can game-plan around a single matchup.
The Valkyries do not need a 25-point scorer. They need five players who understand each other — and they have found exactly that. As Hayes put it, they are ahead of the game. The question the rest of the league is asking, very quietly, is by exactly how much.
The Valkyries Are Not Waiting Their Turn
WNBA expansion teams are supposed to struggle. They are supposed to build patiently, absorb losses, collect draft picks, and hope that their fan base stays engaged long enough to see the competitive window open four or five years down the road. The Valkyries did not get that memo — or they got it and handed it back.
They sold out their home arena in Year 1. They made the playoffs in Year 1. They won Coach of the Year in Year 1. Now, in Year 2, they are 24-9, one win away from clinching a playoff berth, and on pace to join the elite tier of WNBA teams with 30 regular-season wins.
Ballhalla is open. The back-to-back against Minnesota is coming. And as of right now, in the league’s 30th season, the Golden State Valkyries are the most dangerous team nobody is talking about loudly enough.
They prefer it that way.