The Golden State Valkyries are the WNBA's great expansion success story — so successful, so fast, that they rewrote what an expansion team is supposed to be. Announced in 2023 as the league's first expansion franchise in over a decade, owned by the Warriors' Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, the Valkyries took the floor in 2025 at Chase Center in San Francisco. The expectation for expansion teams is patience: lose a lot, learn, build slowly. Golden State skipped all of that.
What defined the Valkyries was their inaugural season. The 2025 Valkyries became the first expansion franchise in WNBA history to reach the playoffs in their debut season — and they didn't back in. They sold out every single home game, set a league attendance record averaging more than 18,000 fans a night, and turned Chase Center into "Ballhalla," the violet-clad fortress that visiting teams dreaded. Coach Natalie Nakase won Coach of the Year for molding an expansion-draft roster of castoffs and overlooked veterans into a defensive juggernaut. Veronica Burton, Kayla Thornton, and a roster full of players with something to prove played with a collective chip on their shoulder the size of the Bay Bridge.
The identity was defense and defiance. The Valkyries didn't have a superstar; they had a system, a crowd, and an edge. Nakase's teams play ferocious, switching, relentless defense, and the Ballhalla faithful fed off every stop. It was the perfect basketball marriage of team and town: the Bay Area, which had waited decades for a WNBA franchise, showed up like it had been waiting its whole life. The name itself carries weight — Valkyries, the mythological warrior women who chose who lived and who died in battle. The violet and black branding, the sword imagery, the unapologetic fierceness of it all: Golden State built a brand with genuine attitude from day one, and Forbes rewarded it with the highest valuation in the league.
The second season was about proving the first one wasn't a fluke — and then going further than anyone imagined. The 2026 Valkyries didn't just return to the playoffs; they won the franchise's first playoff series, and they did it with a comeback for the Ballhalla highlight reel. Drawn against the seventh-seeded Dallas Wings in the first round, Golden State took Game 1 at home behind a defense that smothered Paige Bueckers, then watched Arike Ogunbowale drop a playoff-record 45 points in a 108-100 overtime loss in Game 2 in Arlington. Back at Chase Center for the decider, the Valkyries fell behind by 16 — and stormed all the way back to win 77-73, with Gabby Williams putting the team on her back in the fourth quarter. The French national team star and All-Star scored all eight of Golden State's final points in the last two minutes, finishing with 19 points on a night she shot 3-of-6 from three — this after dropping a career-high 36 in the Game 2 loss. "There's some magic in this building, I swear there is," Williams told ESPN. "Big shot Gabby. She's our dog. She's our leader," guard Tiffany Hayes said. "It's Gabby Williams — what you talking about?" Williams shot a career-best 34.2 percent from three on the season, and forward Janelle Salaün was named the league's Sixth Woman of the Year.
The night had a frightening moment, too. During a timeout at the 1:40 mark of the fourth quarter, Nakase collapsed to the hardwood while talking with an official; assistants and medical staff rushed over, she was helped back to her feet holding her head, and she kept coaching through the final buzzer — then needed help from her staff again afterward. With Star Wars creator George Lucas in the building among the sellout crowd, the Force, it turned out, was strong with Ballhalla.
Now comes the biggest test yet. The Valkyries open a best-of-five semifinal series against the defending champion Las Vegas Aces — Game 1 on Sunday at Chase Center on NBC — with a chance to extend the most improbable run in recent league history against the dynasty chasing its fourth title in five years. Two years ago this franchise didn't exist. Now it's hosting a semifinal.
The context around them is a league in full bloom. The Valkyries' arrival in 2025 opened the expansion era; in 2026 the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo joined as the 14th and 15th franchises (Portland went 17-27, the second-best expansion record since 2000, and closed its season by beating Golden State 90-82 in overtime), with Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia announced for 2028 through 2030. Golden State set the standard every newcomer is measured against.
The rivalries are brand new and already real: the Aces as the Western Conference mountain to climb, the Seattle Storm as the old dynasty, the Wings as an early playoff foil. The Valkyries' story is just beginning, but the opening chapters are already legendary — the expansion team that refused to act like one, backed by the loudest building in the league. Ballhalla is here to stay.
