Golden State Valkyries Expansion Draft Details Released

Posted On October 1, 2024October 1, 2024

Our original plan for today was to publish the expansion draft article that we had prepared for the Indiana Fever, but there was exciting news that will postpone that piece until Friday. The WNBA officially announced the rules and details for the expansion draft that will allow the Golden State Valkyries to start building their inaugural roster. While most of the rules are about what would have been expected, one unanticipated rule will be favorable to the Valkyries.

Date and Broadcast

The draft will take place on Friday, December 6th, and be broadcast on ESPN. The league and ESPN will have to figure out the time of day when that will happen, but the team has already announced that they will have multiple watch party events for the reveal. The final deadline has not been decided yet for when the existing teams will have to submit their list of six protected players to the league, which will then transmit the list to the Valkyries. At that time, the team will be able to negotiate trades with the other teams to facilitate multi-team trades or to guarantee that a specific player is picked or not picked.

The Rules

Most of the announced rules ended up being what was expected before the rules were finalized. Each team will be able to protect six players and the Valkyries may only select one player from each team. One core-eligible unprotected unrestricted free agent can be selected by the team and have the core tag applied in the same manner that the original team could. Whatever existing contract or rights exist are attached to the player transfers over after selection.

Draft Rights Players

The rule that was not necessarily expected to be in effect that was announced is that unsigned draft picks can selected by the Valkyries. An additional complication for unsigned 2024 draft picks is that they can enter the 2025 draft if they have not signed a professional basketball contract outside of the WNBA after the 2024 draft. Teams have a limit of unsigned draft picks that they can retain and the majority of them are unlikely to be considered for protection or have any likelihood of being picked, but there are some players who were drafted with relatively high picks whose teams could protect them.

Our Speculation Series

Our upcoming articles will take into account some of the official rules that have been announced. In terms of draft rights players, the league has not always been active in publishing transaction information regarding players whose rights have been renounced. As a result, our articles will only discuss recent picks whose rights we are relatively sure are still held by a team as some of the more long-term unsigned draft picks are unlikely to factor into this process. We will mention if there are players that teams may try to salary dump on the Valkyries by offering them compensation to pick them. We will also talk about teams that may be willing to give up assets to protect additional players by trading for a guarantee that a certain unprotected player will not be picked. For articles that we have already published, we will publish an article on Wednesday that discusses if the official announcement changes the situation for those teams.