SAN FRANCISCO – It was the first day of school for the Valkyries on Friday night. Excitement. Buzz. New faces. Some familiar ones. A new chapter.
And a whole lot of unknown.
That became increasingly obvious with each and every turnover. Golden State finished its 2025 WNBA season opener with 22 turnovers, which resulted in 25 points for the Los Angeles Sparks in an 84-67 loss.
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SIGN UP HERE Most of the takeaways stemmed from miscommunication. That’s the result of any group of individuals working together for the first time, and something that only time can help cure.
The Valkyries, the WNBA’s first expansion team in 17 years, got together for training camp and team practices just two weeks ago. It’s not an excuse, but the newness to this historic team will at times be its own downfall.
“I don’t like to do excuses,” Valkyries guard Julie Vanloo said postgame as she tried to find a reason for the 22 turnovers.
After giving it some thought, she acknowledged being a new team played a part.
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“I mean yes,” she said. “Maybe. You got to learn how to play with each other. Still, it’s been, what? Two weeks. Let’s be honest. It’s not easy. You can see LA, there’s a lot of people that already played with each other. We’re new. Everything is new. So we got to work through it.”
Vanloo herself had six turnovers and was a minus-16 in plus/minus rating in 27 minutes off the bench. But she single-handedly turned a 15-point deficit into a 6-point deficit after knocking down three consecutive 3-pointers in the third quarter.
Even after her mid-game shooting flurry that led to a Chase Center eruption, she was unsatisfied with her performance by her standards.
“It was a special moment,” Vanloo said of her shooting spree. “But I’m hard on myself. I know that tonight I’m not going to think about those threes when I think about the six turnovers I did. I’m a point guard. I cannot have six turnovers.”
Tiffany Hayes added four turnovers in 30 minutes. Carla Leite had three in 12 minutes. Monique Billings finished with two in 23 minutes off the bench.
Every single player on the roster finished with at least one turnover.
As Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase sat down for her postgame press conference, she was asked about the biggest key to take away from the loss. Before the reporter could fully finish their question, Nakase responded.
"Taking care of the ball," she said, firmly.
Nakase said her players got "stuck" while moving the ball, and she'd rather have them either catch and shoot or "rip" to the basket. Simply, she wants her team to make quicker decisions, and she hopes more reps and practices will be the solution.
No coach in the history of sports will ever make an excuse for something such as turnovers. But it was hard for even Nakase to diminish her group not having ample time to get familiar with one another.
“I mean, it’s Game 1," she said. "We’ve been together for two and a half weeks. The NBA, usually it’s a month [they practice together]. That is a short amount of time. But again, that’s fine. We’re not making excuses, but we want to make sure we find our pace. We got to make sure everything in space works.
"I think we were excited out there. I think we’re trying to really get downhill a little bit quickly, which I think caused a little bit of congestion. So I think it’s slowing down and making the right reads."
They won't find the answers tomorrow. Or the next day. The adjustments and lessons learned will continue to stack all season long as their historic campaign has just begun.