The Golden State Valkyries Sign Carla Leite

After a quiet week of free agency, the Golden State Valkyries made another move on Friday, signing Carla Leite, who they had selected from the Dallas Wings in the expansion draft process. The young French point guard was picked ninth in last year’s entry draft so getting her to sign for this season gives them another talented player to try to develop. Her scoring prowess and signs of playmaking are a solid base for her to continue to grow as a player.

Background

After playing at smaller local clubs, Leite entered the youth setup at Lyon, one of the top academies in France now. She was not quite as highly regarded as some of the other prospects her age so she did not break into the youth national team setup until later. Looking for more playing time at the top division level, she joined Tarbes Gespe Bigorre in 2022 and emerged immediately, using all of her opportunities to become an all-league player in her second season with them. Those two seasons put her firmly in the WNBA draft conversation for 2024 and her stock rose to the point where she was picked ninth.

Current Season

As those who have been following our weekly Where are the Valkyries? column have seen, Leite is playing her first club season with Villeneuve-d’Ascq in France. While the team has battled injuries, Leite has had an excellent debut with them and is currently second in the league in scoring and fifth in assisting while shooting over 41% from beyond the arc. The team is really struggling in the standings, which does mean that their season could run to mid-May as they try to avoid relegation. Those early issues also meant a quick exit from EuroLeague, but they are certainly in contention for the EuroCup title after dropping down to that competition.

French National Team

Leite is one of a number of international players that the Valkyries have signed so there are worries as always about her availability, which may have affected the timing of her signing. She played in the last two EuroBasket qualifiers to help France officially qualify for June’s tournament, but a number of guards were unavailable during that time who are expected to be back in the squad. If all French guards are available, she would likely be on the outside looking in for the final roster and that status may have already been communicated to her. That means that she might already be planning on spending the whole season with Golden State. If she is still competing for a spot on France’s roster, she might not join the team until after her duties are done there instead of being able to join their training camp late like the veterans of multiple international tournaments.

Updated Roster Situation

The Valkyries now have thirteen players under contract, bringing them above the regular season roster limit even before signing more players or their draft picks. Of course, not all the players in training camp will ultimately make the team and Golden State will have the salary cap room to suspend players temporarily if they going to miss the start of the season, which would allow them to have more than twelve players under contract at the same time. As a player who still had valid draft rights, Leite’s contract is automatically the rookie scale at the terms that would be in play if she were drafted at the same position this year. That means that the contract can be up to four years, but is currently fully unguaranteed with a base salary of $72,455 for this season.