The Bay Area once again has a championship contender. 

Chase Center is sold out every home game. 

Basketball is the talk of the town. 

Only this time it has nothing to do with Steph Curry. 

Instead, headlines are being dominated by the WNBA’s first expansion team since 2008, the Golden State Valkyries, who finished the WNBA season in second place with a 72.7% winning percentage and have a real shot at nabbing the championship trophy in just their second year in the league. They open the postseason against the Dallas Wings on Sunday.

It has been a whirlwind for a team that has taken over the league in a city that clearly loves women’s basketball and has long been spoiled by the franchise’s brother team, the Warriors, who won four championships in eight years from 2015-2022 before failing to get past the second round of the playoffs the last four years.  

Now it’s the women’s turn. 

The Valkyries have taken everyone by surprise, led by coach Natalie Nakase whose strategy relies on strangling defenses and balanced offensive production, eschewing the long-established notion that a singular star needs to dominate. 

Scoring is spread between starters Gabby Williams and Veronica Burton, as well as reserve Janelle Salaun, who has the record for most points scored by player off the bench in a season with 509 points.

The Valkyries have the WNBA’s all-time highest scoring bench in a season, averaging 35.9 points a game. They have the league’s best defensive rating (99.3). 

What’s crazy is how quickly the Valkyries have taken over. 

They’re the league’s first expansion team since the Atlanta Dream in 2008. In their first season last year, they finished in eighth place, locking up the league’s final playoff seed. Nakase won Coach of the Year.

The Valkyries’ arrival has coincided with exponential growth in the WNBA.

The league and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement in March, which includes a salary cap jump to $7 million, revenue sharing and a maximum salary for 2026 of $1.19 million. The league secured a media rights deal worth over $3 billion in May. The WNBA, which is experiencing record ratings and attendance, is expected grow from 15 teams to 18 by 2030.

The Valkyries have set the bar.

Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber agreed to pay a record $50 million expansion fee in 2023 for the Valkyries. Just three years later, CNBC appraised the Valkyries at $1 billion, making the franchise the first women’s professional sports team to reach that figure, according to The Athletic.

The WNBA’s fledgling franchise blew past expectations in popularity and success. Their first game had 18,064 fans in attendance. 

Ahead of the Valkyries’ inaugural season, Fan Duel put their line at 8.5 total wins, aka, the cellar of the league. Despite the December expansion draft allowing teams to protect six players and not signing any top free agents, the Valkyries still soared.

It’s exciting for the WNBA, which could look at the Valkyries as a blueprint for success.

And it’s even more thrilling for the Bay Area, which has a new team to hitch its flag to as the Warriors struggle to remain contenders behind Curry, who turns 39 years old next season. 

The Valkyries are “the it” team. 

They have a coach who has surpassed expectations. They have a team that has stunned the league. 

And they have captured the imagination of the Bay Area, a region that has been at the epicenter of the basketball world for the last decade. 

The Warriors in many ways came out of nowhere to take the NBA by storm back in 2015. 

Now it appears to be the Valkyries’ turn.