Our Views on the Golden State Valkyries Expansion Draft

After a long wait, the Golden State Valkyries got to announce their first ever players when they revealed their selections from each team. The Expansion Draft had already finished by that point, but the televised announcement of the picks going in alphabetical order by team made it official for the fans as well. While there were some expected picks, there were also surprises that were not predicted by fans or media who were putting themselves in the shoes of the Valkyries or other teams. The team did appear to have a strategy that they were able to carry out in the process and how their roster will look by the season opener will be the real time to evaluate all of their moves.

The Early Leaked Picks

The entire expansion draft process had resulted in surprisingly few leaks as the league’s efforts to keep that knowledge private did actually work. Once the final picks had been made and the selection show was about to be broadcasted, The Athletic reported two picks that would be made. They were the two picks that were frequently predicted and did not really hurt the suspense of the other picks. Kayla Thornton from the New York Liberty and Kate Martin of the Las Vegas Aces were then announced officially during the broadcast.

It was generally expected that the Liberty would protect the six players who ended up contributing the most to the final series that resulted in them winning the championship and that is probably what happened. Thornton would then have been the player who was next most valuable to that effort and was certainly a reasonable choice even if it was not the most exciting possibility. The Aces were expected to protect their four key players, but the other two spots were more up in the air. As one of their younger players, there was some expectation that Martin would take one of the spots based on promising moments in her rookie season and her defensive versatility. Ultimately, she was left available for selection and it was probably not a difficult decision for Golden State to choose her.

Handling Restricted Free Agency

There are not too many restricted free agents in the WNBA this year and their fates in the expansion draft process were debated. Teams wanting to keep the right to match contracts for those players would have to protect them, but they could fear losing them regardless due to another team’s offer sheet being too difficult to match. The Valkyries would have had the same fear of not actually ending up with anything from the pick if the player ultimately signed with another team. This year had a particular wrinkle with players anticipating the new CBA for 2026 and beyond and the resulting increase in salaries leaving most free agents aiming for a one-year contract. Contract offers from other teams to restricted free agents must have at least two years included so some of those players are more likely to just settle on a one-year deal with the team holding those restricted rights.

The Valkyries picked Temi Fagbenle from the Indiana Fever as she is a restricted free agent having completed only four years in the league despite being 32 now. She was born in the United States, but has spent significant portions of her life in the United Kingdom and she plays for Great Britain’s national team. She returned to the United States for high school and then missed her entire first season to complete her graduate degree at USC having already earned a degree from Harvard. She proved to be a valuable contributor this past season after being absent from the league for five seasons. If she opts to return to the WNBA and ends up with the Valkyries after the restricted free agency process, she could be a great energy player off the bench

Coring an Unrestricted Free Agent

The Valkyries could only pick one unprotected unrestricted free agent from any of the teams with the ability to place the core designation on the player, giving them the ability to sign a one-year maximum contract or a longer or even a lesser contract. Golden State picked Monique Billings from the Phoenix Mercury, but made it clear that they could ultimately not extend that core offer to her and let her remain a free agent. She is certainly an interesting choice having not started the season on a team, but she proved to be a solid option in the post again with two different teams. There is a scenario in which Phoenix protected all of the other players who interested the Valkyries and there were no other free agents who they felt warranted the core offer, but this could end up being a pick that they ultimately get no use from in the future.

The Salary Cap Situation

Golden State may have made an unusual set of selections in this process, but they certainly retain significant flexibility with their salary cap situation ahead of free agency. If Monique Billings is ultimately extended that core offer, a chunk of that room would be taken away, but only three players are under contract right now. That includes Kate Martin, who is will be entering the second year of her rookie contract, which is still unguaranteed. Kayla Thornton has a guaranteed contract for $112,000 on the salary cap,

The Valkyries picked Stephanie Talbot from the Los Angeles Sparks and she has a guaranteed contract that will count for $125,000 on the salary cap. The team had extended her contract another year before the end of the season, but decided not to protect her after a coaching change. Like Thornton, she offers some versatility and a lot of experience in the league. The team is limited to six guaranteed contracts for veterans so two of those spots are occupied now, but the expansion draft has an unusual rule attached to it where teams can waive either of these players before the start of the season and remove them from the salary cap while still paying them the contracted amount for the year.

For updated salary cap information for the Valkyries, you can check Richard Cohen’s work on Her Hoop Stats:
https://herhoopstats.com/salary-cap-sheet/wnba/team/2025/golden-state-valkyries-11efb2ba-e2c6-f520-8806-9a93b15b3fec/

Draft Rights Players

There were not too many surprises when it came to the draft rules, but the ability to pick players who had been drafted, but never been signed was not expected. As a result, the Dallas Wings had additional players who they had to choose between for protection and the Valkyries selected Carla Leite, who was just the 9th pick in the last draft. The young French point guard will not be 21 until just before the season and she has had a meteoric rise over the last few years to become a first round prospect. She could join the Valkyries this year or may end up continuing to play in Europe and Golden State would continue to retain her rights. It was no surprise that draft rights were selected as those players are not always planning on joining right away to add to the roster crunch.

The Valkyries selected another play who was drafted, but has never signed in the WNBA when they picked Maria Conde from the Chicago Sky, but she does not actually count towards this category, which is a positive given that only four players can have their draft rights retained while unsigned. She played for Florida State for two seasons before returning to Europe and good work there meant that Chicago picked her 27th in 2019. International agents have had differing opinions on signing immediately or waiting until players were ready to join the league and the fashion at the time had her signing immediately, but not reporting. After not reporting for four straight seasons, her contract expired, but she had never played, so the Sky retained her exclusive rights and she did not become a free agent. The concern that she may never even attempt to play in the WNBA due to spending summers with Spain’s national team left her out of contention for the expansion draft in most people’s minds, but it was unlikely that any of other unprotected players would have made Golden State too excited.

Other Exclusive Rights

The Valkyries selected another player whose exclusive rights remained due to their contract expiring while being suspended and it was the first name called when they picked Iliana Rupert from the Atlanta Dream. She was originally drafted with the last pick of the first round in 2021, but did not start until the next season. After being waived, Atlanta picked up her up before the 2023 season and then she ended up sitting out all of last season to earn a spot on France’s Olympic team. She is still a promising young center even though concerns about missed time due to her national team will continue and there were likely other unprotected players that would have been reasonable choices for Golden State too. Her brother Rayan is in his second season in the NBA with Portland.

One of the other expected choices that the Valkyries made was their pick of Veronica Burton from the Connecticut Sun as the team was generally thought to be considering three players for the final two protection spots. She had been waived before the season, but proved to be a solid backup point guard when the Sun signed her, and this being her third season in the league, they retained the exclusive right to sign her which Golden State takes over instead.

There were other players picked whose contracts have expired, but were not eligible for free agency yet, allowing them to be picked in this draft like Cecilia Zandalasini from the Minnesota Lynx. Should she play for the team, it would be a long-delayed opportunity for her to play in the Bay Area after she was heavily recruited by Cal. While she considered college basketball, she ended up staying in Italy, going undrafted as a 20 year old in 2016, but she signed with Minnesota the next year. This past season marked her return to the league for the first time since 2018 and she was a contributor on the wing, but her years missed, especially to play for her national team, and her only experience being with the Lynx had some people believing that she would be a risky pick. Minnesota was also considered a likely partner for a trade that would net Golden State additional assets, but that did not end up happening.

The last pick announced in the draft broadcast was Julie Vanloo of the Washington Mystics for one last surprise during the event. Even though she had a solid rookie year, there was no expectation that she would be protected as she will be 32 years old before the start of next season and does not match their timeline for rebuilding. Washington was also a team considered as a possible trade partner because of how many additional young or veteran players they might have wanted to keep, but nothing materialized. Vanloo was not a big draft prospect out of Belgium, so she was a free agent after the 2013 draft and finally got her chance this year, instantly becoming a popular player. If she ends up suiting up for the Valkyries, she would be able to wear her number 35 even though it is retired by the Golden State Warriors due to being worn by Kevin Durant, one of her favorite basketball players.

EuroBasket 2025

One of the consequences of the WNBA scheduling their season opposite the most common schedule in leagues around the world is that they play during the portion of the year that is dedicated to national team tournaments. While they break for the Olympics and generally try to schedule around the World Cup, a subject that will be of interest in 2026, they play through the four confederation championships that will all be contested in 2025. As a result, there may be players on WNBA teams who depart partway through the season to join their national teams as well as players who only play in the league after the tournament is over or opt to skip the entire season to play and then rest.

Stephanie Talbot will still be available as Australia does not call in WNBA players for the Asia Cup, which they have not won since Asia and Oceania have had a unified tournament. EuroBasket 2025 will be of greater relevance to the Valkyries and the rest of the WNBA as the qualifying process finishes in February ahead of the tournament from June 18th to 29th after they selected so many European players here. Traditional powers have historically considered it incredibly disrespectful for players to skip any part of the four week or longer training camp to prepare for the event.

Italy will be there so Cecilia Zandalasini’s WNBA plans are not clear yet, especially since the team is putting all of their eggs into this basket, having declined to attempt to qualify for the World Cup process this past summer. Spain is not officially qualified, but will almost certainly be there, affecting Maria Conde’s plans. Belgium still has work to do to qualify, but Julie Vanloo did have dispensation to join them once the WNBA took their Olympic break this year so she could be planning to play as much of the season as possible again. Great Britain is far from guaranteed to qualify, but their WNBA players do not always join the squad for EuroBasket.

France’s qualification is also pretty much a formality at this point and they are supposed to be unveiling a new policy that allows WNBA players to report to training camp late and still make the team. That could be big when it comes to Iliana Rupert, who has missed partial or full seasons to fight for her spot on the national team. For a player like Carla Leite who does not have prior tournament experience for France, she is more likely to want to attend the entire training camp to improve her chances. Not all WNBA teams are willing or able to handle that kind of longer absence. She might be able to find out that she does not have much of a chance of making the final roster, meaning that the WNBA is more realistic for next year.

Passing on a Team

It seemed likely that all twelve teams would have something of value for the Valkyries to select, but the team ended up passing on making a selection from the Seattle Storm, which was easily the team where a path to that choice could be seen. Most people who made protection predictions had the team protecting their four under contract veterans, Gabby Williams to preclude the possibility that the Valkyries would select her and then apply the core designation to her for next season, and then either Nika Muhl or the draft rights to Mackenzie Holmes, leaving Golden State with the ability to pick whichever one of the last two was not picked.

If the actual protection choices followed those above, it is hard to see why the Valkyries would not have made a selection. Muhl was injured at the start of her overseas season and is unlikely to be able to play at the start of next season, which would mean that her team could suspend her contract for the season, removing it from the salary cap, and that would actually make choosing her have added value in terms of flexibility. Holmes had surgery that would have left her unable to play so she did not sign her contract. In theory, she could re-enter the draft in 2025 instead of signing a contract with the team holding her rights, but that would still not have harmed Golden State if they picked her and she took the unusual move of draft re-entry.

The actual protection scenario might have really been that Muhl and Holmes were protected along with the four players under contract. Williams is represented by one of the most powerful WNBA agents who has chosen a pretty strong strategy of going to the media for various items. Even before the expansion draft, there was constant chatter about how Williams wanted to retain complete free agency for 2025 and Seattle may have figured that Golden State would avoid getting on the bad side of agents so early in their existence and would not choose her. Our semi-serious selection in that scenario would have been picking Tijana Krivacevic, who Seattle originally drafted in 2010, but it is possible that her rights are no longer held by the team even if that fact had not been communicated publicly.

No Trades Made

Besides speculating on which players would be picked, there was a lot of interest in predicting possible trades that the Valkyries could make, hoping that the team could acquire additional assets besides the players being added. There ultimately ended up being no trades being made at all, which may mean that the full potential of the process might not have been achieved. Given that quite a few of the players selected seemed unlikely to be the seventh choice of their teams for protection, the team was unable to leverage that into getting both the player who they wanted and an asset in exchange for a player who they were never going to select. It is possible that the team did try to make offers to other teams and had their bluffs called. Teams may also not have wanted to tip their hands by proposing deals that would make them seem desperate.

The other type of trade that would have been possible would have been the team picking a player and then redirecting them to a third team. One wrinkle in this situation was the other teams not being informed about who was protected on other teams. While the Valkyries could have fielded speculative inquiries, it might have been difficult to initiate this type of trade with so much uneven knowledge of the situation between parties. There are several players who are likely to be involved in trade chatter when free agency opens so there will plenty of chances for Golden State to be active in acquiring players who are under contract and were not selected in the draft.

Where are the Players Now?

While Kate Martin was in the United States at the time of the draft, the other players selected were scattered around the world playing in overseas leagues, a common practice for WNBA players given that the season in most leagues runs opposite that of the WNBA. Now that the players have been named, we will publish regular articles, usually on Tuesdays, that will cover how those players are doing with their current teams. Martin will be added to that list when she starts play in Unrivaled, a new 3v3 league in the United States.

Funnily enough, there are two places in Turkey where players selected in the draft are also teammates as Julie Vanloo and Cecilia Zandalasini are playing for Galatasaray in Istanbul and Iliana Rupert and Kayla Thornton are playing for Cukurova in Mersin. Temi Fagbenle is also in Istanbul with Besiktas. Two players are in Australia as Stephanie Talbot is playing for Adelaide and Veronica Burton is playing for Bendigo. Monique Billings is playing for Guangdong in China, Carla Leite is playing for Villeneuve-d’Ascq in France, and Maria Conde is playing for Czech powerhouse USK Prague.

Evaluating Their Draft

Any evaluation of the draft is done with a continued lack of knowledge about which players teams did and did not protect. It feels likely that there were some more aggressive moves that could have been made, but it is possible that trade overtures were rebuffed. The team did manage to retain significant flexibility ahead of free agency and that figures to be the main push that the team will make to build out their first roster while also getting the fifth pick in the entry draft and that will ultimately be the way that the front office is judged after next season.