Valkyrie Valley and the Value of Courage
WNBA

Valkyrie Valley and the Value of Courage

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After a year’s prediction, the 2025 WNBA season officially began with the 13th team. Golden State Valkyrie is here.

When Valkyries fans step into the Chase Center for the game, it’s no longer just the Chase Center. The arena name has a different personality.

Attendees will encounter Jumbotron’s message with the words “Welcome to Ballhalla.” Very Scandinavian!

The court will become a battlefield. The 12 players in Valkyries uniforms are ready and ready for battle. The atmosphere is electricity. The excitement and intensity are obvious.

However, the team’s consistent level of play may take some time to match the energy within the building.

In the first regular-season game on May 16, the team hoped to be a historic victory in front of the home crowd turned into a disappointing 84-67 loss for the Los Angeles Sparks. However, on May 21, the Valkyries bouncing off in a 76-74 home victory over the Washington mystics for their first regular season victory in Valkyries history.

Golden State received great crowd support as both home games began the regular season. A sold-out audience of 18,064 fans attended each game.

This followed 17,428 attendance in the first Valkyrie season game at Chase Center on May 6, and overlapped with the NBA counterpart, Golden State Warriors, playing playoff games at Minneapolis’ Target Center simultaneously, proving that the Bay Area is a love of basketball and is the perfect place to expand the WNBA.

The first week of Golden State’s regular season action came just after an eventful few weeks, taking into account how international talent the team has on the roster, with a WNBA draft, training camp, preseason and final roster decision, which attracted a lot of attention and a lot of attention filled with plot and surprise.

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Valkyries selected JustÄ— JocytÄ—, Shyanne Sellers and Kaitlyn Chen using three draft topics. Unfortunately, these plans didn’t work as fans want to see a new draft topic with immediate action for the Golden State.

Josit, drafted in the fifth overall draft, will not play for the Valkyries until 2026 as he focuses on playing for the Lithuanian national team in Eurobasket competitions. Sellers were exempt before the team officially took to court. Chen was the only one to take part in the Golden State preseason game.

Golden State played two preseason games, falling to Sparks 83-82 at home on May 6th and defeating Phoenix Mercury on May 11th at Phoenix Mercury 84-79.

In the first preseason game, Leticia Amihele led Valkyrie with 20 points as she tried to showcase her dreams of Atlanta and her potential as a reliable rotation player after stagnating to start her career for two years. In the second game, Maminyantoure scored 19 points with four-nine shots from 3-point range.

When the Valkyries opening day roster was announced, Chen, Amihere and Touré were among the players who had been cut. Surprisingly, the team’s active roster for 2025 doesn’t include either the Valkyries’ first draft pick or the main preseason scorer.

There were many rocky moments between the preseason and the beginning of the regular season. Although the sample size is smaller, Valkyrie struggles with several notable categories at different times.

3-point shooting

Valkyries struggles to fire from 3-point range, especially in the opening half of the game. In three of the four games, most of the shot attempts were from behind the three-point line.

  • May 6th and Sparks (Preseason): 14 of 14 from the first half’s 3-point range. 28 vs 6 from the 3 points range in the game
  • May 11th and Mercury (preseason): Three-thirds from the first half’s 3-point range. 13/13 from the 3 points range in the game
  • May 16 vs Spark: 4 from the first half of the 3-point range. 9 of 35 from the 3-point range in the game
  • May 21st and the Mystics: Two-half of the 3-point range in the first half. 7 from the 3 points range in the game
Offensive rebounds are allowed

In two of the first four games, Valkyries allowed the opposing team to reach double-digit offensive rebounds, giving their opponents many second chance opportunities.

  • May 6th and Sparks (Preseason): 10 offensive rebounds allowed
  • May 11 vs Mercury (preseason): 13 offensive rebounds allowed
  • May 16th and Sparks: 3 offensive rebounds allowed
  • May 21 vs Mysticism: 7 offensive rebounds allowed
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Turnover

Golden State has committed at least 15 turnovers in two of the four games they have played so far.

  • May 6th and Sparks (Preseason): 16 turnovers
  • May 11 vs Mercury (preseason): 8 turnovers in total
  • May 16th and Sparks: 22 turns over
  • May 21 vs. Mystic: 13 turns over

In two regular season games at Golden State, the team couldn’t stop Kelsey Plum and Britney Sykes from scoring 37 and 30 points, respectively.

And while Valkyrie struggles to prevent some of the league’s best scorers from delivering large scoring performances, they also have concerns related to depths in the lack of anything big on the roster. Behind Temi Fagbenle, the only other center in Valkyries is Kyara Linskens. It can sometimes be difficult for a front coat to lift both ends of the interior floor.

Valkyries can still surpass expectations

There were difficult patches early in the year, but there were also impressive moments that made the fans optimistic about what the team could do.

Julie Vanlou has shown spectacular passes and flashes of long distance shots, making him a standout newcomer in mystic last year. Carla Leit provided tenacious energy on both sides of the ball. Veronica Burton and Kayla Thornton showed off their defensive capabilities that have become players who have influenced the championship contending team last year. Thornton, a member of New York Liberty’s Championship Run last year, knows how difficult it is to reach the ultimate peak of victory.

Burton had a great performance in his victory over the mystics, talliing 22 points (14 in the fourth quarter), nine rebounds, five assists and two steels. After Tiffany Hayes left the match with a nose injury in the first half, the Valkyries had to step up, and Burton was crucial in leading the team to the finish line with the victory.

Please refer

Also, after attempting 12 3-pointers in the regular season at last year’s Indiana Fever, Fagbenl has shown his willingness to shoot a 3-pointer. She is currently two-sixths from the 3-point range in her first two regular-season games.

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These are glimpses of high-level plays that will excite fans.

Observe what’s ahead

But most of the time, Valkyries looks like a new expansion team trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle. After coming out of the Ace’s bench in Las Vegas last year, she saw her playing time diminished after the Olympics break, and how much production can Kate Martin offer in her second year? Hayes is a proven bucket getter who is the sixth player of the year, but who is the team’s second-round scorer to help Hayes do the offense? Can Linskens act as a reliable backup for Fagbenle?

As Valkyries continues its first season, the road ahead won’t be easy. At Pt tonight at 7pm, they will face Sparks at crypto.com arena. Hayes misses the game due to injury.

After tonight, the next nine games on the schedule: Liberty, Liberty, vs. Minnesota Links, Mercury, vs. Sparks, Seattle Storm, Dallas Wings, Fever. Many of these upcoming games will face the teams that made the postseason last year, and are expected to be at the top of the rankings this year. How do they oppose Brenna Stewart, Johnkel Jones, Aja Wilson, Nafisa Collier, Alyssa Thomas, and more?

Although it’s a long season, the Valkyries continue to devote their hearts to Barhalla fans and fans throughout the Bay Area. At a postgame press conference after losing the season-opening game, Van Lu emphasized how much he hopes the team will cries out the home crowd to them loudly, especially when they run big in the game.

“I think that’s why people come here,” Vanlou said. “This is the Bay Area. This is the Chase Center. The magic happened here and we could continue to try and do it.”

Golden State’s first season is not expected to be perfect, and there are awkward moments. But sometimes, in the midst of clutter, you can find something worthy of cherishing. The Valkyries reach a point where tough times make them stronger and make their journey even more rewarding.

Statistics as of May 23rd. Statistics are provided unless otherwise stated wnba.com.

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