Date, Time, Location: Monday, July 7th, 4:30pm PDT, Gateway Center Arena (College Park)
Broadcast Information: KPIX (Bay Area), KMAX (Sacramento), PeachtreeTV (away team local market), WNBA League Pass (outside local markets), Audacy (radio)
The Golden State Valkyries continue their road trip on Monday when they visit the Atlanta Dream as they try to maintain their winning record. Their opponents have also been one of the positive surprises in the league so far this year with their strong start to the season and both teams will want to stay secure in the playoff places as the halfway mark of the schedule approaches. In sharp contrast to games in San Francisco, the Valkyries will be visiting the smallest arena in the league.
The Valkyries
Golden State will be hoping to have Carla Leite back to have a full roster available. Three Valkyries players started their careers with the Dream, including Tiffany Hayes, who played with them for a decade, and Monique Billings, who spent six years there. Laeticia Amihere spent two years in Atlanta before they waived her, ultimately allowing the Valkyries to bring her in for this season and she will be hoping to get the chance to face her former team. In the expansion draft, the Valkyries selected the exclusive signing rights to Iliana Rupert from the Dream, but she has not joined the team yet.
The Opposition
The Atlanta Dream made the playoffs in the last two seasons, but after sneaking into the last spot with a 15-25 record last season, decided to make a coaching change for this season. Karl Smesko, who had been unsuccessfully targeted by college teams in the past after doing a fantastic job of building the program at Florida Gulf Coast from scratch, accepted the challenge of trying to bring his system to the professional level.
Atlanta already had a settled situation in the backcourt with Jordin Canada being their target to start at point guard last season. She joined an established group on the wings with Allisha Gray and young star Rhyne Howard offering versatility and tremendous scoring ability. Two other rotation players remained under contract as Nia Coffey was a backup at forward and Naz Hillmon is playing out her rookie contract and contributing in the post. Maya Caldwell is the other player on the roster who was there last year, providing backup minutes on the win.
Despite Karl Smesko’s reputation for running smallball lineups, the Dream pursued two top centers in free agency and gave them maximum contracts. Brittney Griner joined the team after her long tenure in Phoenix came to an end and Brionna Jones was one of the top completely unrestricted free agents on the market when they signed her from Connecticut. They used most of their remaining salary cap space to sign Shatori Walker-Kimbrough from Washington for more experience at guard. Two draft picks made their final roster out of training camp as Te-Hina Paopao has helped them as a good fit at guard after being picked 18th while forward Taylor Thierry has had more limited opportunities after being picked 36th.
Atlanta lost their season opener and their third game, but then went on a four-game winning streak to end May as one of the big stories in the league. They had a poor start to the Commissioner’s Cup, but won three straight games to give themselves a chance to advance heading into the last game, which they lost. The Dream enter this game having lost three of their last four games to drop down to fifth place in the standings, just ahead of the Valkyries. Their last game was a tough loss to the Seattle Storm in their third home game in a row, but Rhyne Howard missed that game and is expected to return.
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