SAN FRANCISCO — When Joe Lacob stood at a podium in 2023 and declared his WNBA expansion team would win a championship within its first five years, it sounded like standard-issue, hubris-soaked bluster from a Silicon Valley billionaire.
Turns out, he might have been sandbagging.
Because the Golden State Valkyries haven’t just arrived.
No, they’ve hacked the league.
It’s only Year 2, and Valkyries games are a full-blown violet sensory overload. They’re suffocating, relentless and menacing, empowered by a one-of-one home-court advantage.
And after Thursday’s down-to-the-wire win over Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever, they are sure looking like legitimate title contenders.
Even if they’re not — Sunday’s game against the defending champion Las Vegas Aces is an exceptional barometer — there’s no doubt that right now, they’re the absolute best show in the Bay.
Because Thursday night at Chase Center wasn’t just a basketball game. It was theater.
Ok, maybe it was a gladiatorial battle, but what a time it was.
While other expansion franchises have historically chased high-volume shooters to sell jerseys to casual fans, general manager Ohemaa Nyanin built a roster from spare parts and castoffs and told them to go break things.
Other teams chose flash. The Valkyries chose violence.
It was, and is, a brilliant strategy. So brilliant that it’s hilarious nobody properly executed it before the Valks.
Because shooters run hot and cold. The nightly variance in a league that shot 44 percent from the floor last season is a mathematical nightmare. Prioritizing offense as an expansion team makes you unreliable, flaky and fickle, even if you do it right.
But defense? Defense doesn’t take nights off. Defense travels. Defense ruins game plans and wins games in a league where the toughest come out on top.
And boy, can the Valkyries play some defense.
They’re less of a basketball team and more of an unyielding wall of limbs and bad intentions.
Golden State swatted 11 shots Thursday, a league-wide single-game high for the season.
At the center of the mayhem was Veronica Burton.
On a floor featuring superstars like Clark and fellow top pick Aliyah Boston, Burton was the best player in the building. In the best game of her WNBA career, she dropped 25 points, grabbed six boards and blocked five shots.
She’s done more than just maintain her breakout form from 2025. She’s leveled up.
Her vicious block on Clark with seven minutes left nearly lifted the roof off the place. We’re talking peak Steph Curry avalanche levels of decibels. Did the Warriors have a single home moment that reached that level this past season?
It was so rattling that Clark refused to talk to the media afterward.
Skipping the podium after an ordinary performance is a tough look, but when you spend 40 minutes stuck in a violet blender, a quiet ride to the airport sounds pretty good — league rules be damned.
And that’d be enough of a story, but there’s something larger at play here.
Because there’s also Gabby Williams, the crown jewel of the Valks’ first real offseason.
She fits the team’s defensive ethos perfectly, but she provides something much bigger: validation.
Think of her like the Valkyries’ Andre Iguodala.
Bringing the Bay Area native home feels oh-so-similar to when Lacob convinced Iguodala to join the Warriors in 2013. He validated a franchise’s bold, arrogant trajectory. Williams, who had 19 points Thursday and was the primary defender on Clark down the stretch, does the exact same thing in purple.
And the frantic finish to Thursday’s nationally televised game (as all Fever games are this season) proved her worth.
The Valkyries blew an 11-point lead, letting Indiana claw ahead 82-81 with three minutes left. The tension inside Chase Center was thick enough to chew.
That’s when the defense bowed its neck.
Golden State forced back-to-back Clark turnovers in the final 90 seconds.
It wasn’t a clinical masterpiece — Williams missed three late free throws and Lexie Hull bought a whistle on Burton with a spectacular, Oscar-worthy flop — but when Golden State needed a stop, the Valkyries suffocated Boston on the final possession.
Game over.
And game on for the W.
Because this still feels like the beginning of what the Valkyries are building, and they are way ahead of schedule.
They call Chase Center “Ballhalla” when the Valks are playing. It’s a cute, clever marketing line, but it understates the rabid hostility inside. Is this a street fight or a street party?
Either way, it’s a great time.
And I’d be remiss not to mention the color:
That violet hue is everywhere now, transforming from an expansion color scheme into a regional identity. I expect you’ll see more and more of it in the weeks to come.
When Clark, the sport’s anointed savior, walked out, she was greeted with a wall of ferocious boos. The crowd didn’t relent.
The team matched that energy on the hardwood.
Did a desperate fan base create this juggernaut, or did a relentless team give rise to this fandom? It doesn’t matter. It’s inescapable now.
In a league where congeniality is celebrated, and everyone looks out for each other and the sisterhood of women’s sports, something different and, frankly, better is happening in the Bay:
“Everybody’s a rival,” Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase said after Thursday’s game. “Give me 14 rivals.”
You heard her: The rest of the WNBA is officially on notice.
Because the Valkyries aren’t just playing for a nice sophomore-year playoff seed and a slow build towards the top.
No, they’re coming for the crown, right now, and they don’t care who they have to bruise to get it.
Get on board or get run over.
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