How the Valkyries, the Bay Area’s newest sports startup, are getting off the ground

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Just a few months ago, the Golden State Valkyries were still a collection of ideas. An abstraction. 

Last May, Joe Lacob hired Ohemaa Nyanin out of the Liberty front office as the general manager. In October, she tapped Aces assistant Natalie Nakase as head coach. By February, Jess Smith, the head of revenue for the Angel City soccer team, arrived to run business operations. 

From the minds of the top decision-makers, a team local fans have already fallen in love with was born. As the Valkyries welcome Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever to the city on Thursday, Lacob’s long-held dream of bringing a WNBA franchise to the Bay Area is very much a reality.

Clark fills nearly every road arena, but the Valkyries don’t need an opposing star to juice ticket sales. They sold out their first five games on their own accord. 

When Lacob first met Nakase, he told her he expects a championship in the first five years, then compared the franchise to a “startup” during training camp. Smith led the charge to make Golden State the first WNBA team to sell 10,000 season tickets. Nyanin and Nakase got cracking on roster-building. 

Like all startups, there have been hiccups. With a young and inexperienced roster, Nakase has spent the first quarter of the season figuring out who her best players are and establishing a culture, on and off the court.

They had a blank canvas to work with, and the only way to paint it is with brushes of values. 

Nakase’s favorite word is “killers.” It’s how she describes her team, and it encapsulates how the Valkyries want to identify: as hard workers, competitors, gritty, and tough. 

“Obviously it’s going to take some time,” wing Kate Martin told The Standard. “It’s a brand new organization, we’re building it from the ground up. None of us players have really played with each other before. So it’s just super important to see the progress, see the process over the results right now.”

Right after Veronica Burton led her Bendigo Spirit club team to the WNBL title in Australia, Nakase told her to take a beat. Go home and spend some time with family, the coach urged. She earned it. 

Instead, Burton flew directly from Australia to the Bay Area for training camp. 

“When the opportunity presents itself to get better — I knew we were going to be learning everything brand new, and that’s difficult,” Burton said. “So, any chance that I could spend more time here learning the system, getting to know my coach and some of my teammates, that’s what I was going to do.” 

The decision set the tone for a Valkyries team that prides itself on work ethic.

A day after their June 1 loss to the first-place Lynx, several players texted the head coach asking if they could come into the gym and get extra shots up. Nakase told them no. With three games in five days upcoming, her world-class athletes needed recovery. 

“They’re workers,” Nakase said. “All 12 of my players, they work really hard. There’s rarely a day where I walk in when it’s bad energy, ‘I don’t want to be here.’ They bring that to life. Like, the way they lace their shoes, the way they put their uniform on, they’re ready.”

That’s all by design. When Nakase and Nyanin were trying to fill out the Valkyries’ roster, they pored over film not just for 3-point shooters and powerful post players, but for character. 

For killers. 

Nakase, who has said that the goal is to get 1% better every day, can put words on a chalkboard all she wants. But a culture comes from players showing what they’re really made of. 

“When you watch them play, you can see if, like, when they drive to the basket, are they actually trying to shoot a contested shot?” Nakase said. “A one-on-one shot? A glory shot? Or do they move it and make the right play? 

The WNBA expansion system is set up for new teams to struggle. Instead of choosing first in the amateur draft, Golden State made the fifth selection. Nyanin used the pick on Lithuanian teenager Justė Jocytė, who won’t debut until next season. 

For the expansion draft, teams could protect their six best players, preventing the Valkyries from poaching top talent and sticking them with castoffs.

“This is tough,” executive Kirk Lacob said. “They’re being tasked with starting up a team from scratch and not exactly being given a lot of opportunity from the league to build a winner.” 

The Valkyries’ roster is made up of a combination of expansion draftees, mid-tier free-agents, and players who took unconventional routes to the roster, such as 23-year-old Janelle Saluan, a French wing who had never played in the U.S. before earning a starting job.

It’s a roster filled with potential, but devoid of a superstar who could lift the team into contention. Don’t tell that to fans, though. 

Every home game looks like a celebration of Bay Area basketball crossed with a Chappell Roan concert. The palpable enthusiasm differs from a more corporate atmosphere at Warriors games. 

Fans wear violet leopard-print shirts and don golden norse crowns. At “Ballhalla,” as the team has branded its home arena, Warriors stars such as Steve Kerr, Jonathan Kuminga, and Brandin Podziemski sit courtside near celebrities such as Common.

“We knew from the beginning that the Bay Area and our fans were special,” said Smith, the president, in an email to The Standard. “How the Bay Area is showing up, fully engaged as fans from day one in their Valkyries gear is what we were building toward with every decision we’ve made as we’ve built the organization.” 

What the vibes symbolize is the bottom line — and business is already booming for the Valkyries. 

Forbes expects Golden State to become the league’s most valuable franchise as soon as more data becomes available with time. Officials say the team is expected to generate more than $55 million in revenue — an apparent record for any WNBA team. Much of that is from the club’s 10,000 “founding guard” season-ticket holders and from the downstream benefits of the Lacobs owning the arena. 

The strong financial foundation could pay off when almost all of the league’s top players coincidentally hit free agency at the same time ahead of next season, even in a hard salary cap system.

“We’re never an organization that spends just to spend,” Kirk Lacob said. “We want to spend because it makes sense for us to spend, it gives us an advantage. But the reality is, if we need an advantage in any spot, we have it. We can spend whatever we want, relative to the other teams.” 

On the court, the Valkyries’ identity is clear: defend with intensity (seventh in defensive rating), hustle for 50/50 balls, and shoot a ton of 3-pointers (fourth in attempts per game). 

They play a more free-flowing, five-out style than most teams, reminiscent of what fans see in the NBA. It’s egalitarian, taking the shape of their coach’s philosophy. 

“I think Natalie’s doing a great job,” Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said. “One of the things I always look at with a team is do I understand what their identity is? And if I don’t, then you kind of wonder if they know what their identity is. So it’s very clear what the identity of the Golden State Valkyries is at both ends of the floor.” 

The style requires synergy and chemistry to pull off. That takes time. 

“We’re all just trying to figure it out together,” Martin said. “So we have to remind ourselves that we have to give each other grace. But we also aren’t attacking every game like, ‘Oh, we’re just the new kids on the block.’ No. We’re all professionals, we’ve all played basketball for a very long time and we all want to win.”

After falling to 2-5, the coaching staff challenged its players, including Burton, who had scored in double figures just five times in three seasons entering this year. 

Against the Aces at Chase Center, the Valkyries outscored Las Vegas by 40 points with Burton on the court — a single-game record. Golden State led from the opening tip, cruising to a 27-point statement win while neutralizing three-time MVP A’ja Wilson.

Every trip down the court in the fourth quarter seemed to be a coronation in front of an adoring crowd. There was bucket after bucket, standing ovation after standing ovation. 

The blowout was so stark that after Aces coach Becky Hammon embraced both Nakase — her former assistant — and Martin on the court, she questioned her team’s heart in her postgame press conference. 

Lacob’s ownership group runs the Warriors and the Valkyries, but they’re two distinct franchises. That doesn’t mean they’re wholly different — nor should they be. 

Behind Kerr and Steph Curry, the Warriors have formed one of the most enviable organizational cultures in sports. They’ve provided plenty for the Valkyries to emulate. 

Kirk Lacob regularly advises Valkyries front office staffers, coaches, and business executives. His father is of course involved, too. Nyanin spent time with the Warriors during last Summer League, soaking up information. Personnel from the Warriors side has been preaching from the outset Kerr’s mantra of joy and having fun. 

There’s synergy, and a whole lot of staffing overlap behind the scenes.

“Of course it’s going to be somewhat similar, but at the end of the day, they have found their own way,” Kirk Lacob said.

Unlike the Warriors, the Valkyries practice in Oakland, where Nakase hops into drills and sessions end with a dance breakdown. The Warriors are an established force, having won four championships in the past decade. The Valkyries, meanwhile, have something to prove each time they take the court. 

Practically every game is a revenge opportunity for one Valkyries player facing her former team — the one that was fine losing her in the expansion draft. When most players have endured the feeling of being unwanted, it’s natural to play with a collective edge.

“I just think we had a lot of people who were bought in from the jump,” said Burton, the floor general. “It’s easy to look at an expansion team and lower the expectations, but I don’t necessarily see us doing that. I think we have a bar and a standard we want to set, maybe because we weren’t protected or we have a chip on our shoulder. 

Cultures are built over time. But the Valkyries are no longer conceptual — they’re here, and the clock has already started ticking. The race to beat Joe Lacob’s five-year championship countdown is on.