Valkyries owner Joe Lacob tried to be less emotional about his WNBA team. It's not working
Golden State Valkyries owner Joe Lacob vowed not to let his WNBA team toy with his emotions. Lacob already loses himself in the Warriors at least 82 times every year – a swirling mix of adrenaline and anxiety, exhilaration and frayed nerves, and he really didn’t need more of that.
But then Veronica Burton happened. And Gabby Williams. And head coach Natalie Nakase, improbably propelling the Valkyries two wins from reaching the Finals in only their second season.
And, yes, Lacob is fully immersed.
“I try hard with the Valkyries to not be as emotional as I am with the Warriors,” he told the Chronicle during a 20-minute interview Tuesday at Chase Center. “But it’s getting tougher because I really love this team so much. We’re getting pretty close to, in some ways, being arguably even favored to go to the Finals.
“We’ll see, but I’m getting pretty amped up.”
Lacob spoke these words barely 24 hours before the Valkyries were to face the Las Vegas Aces in Game 2 of their best-of-five semifinal series. Golden State leads 1-0 after cranking up its league-best defense, dominating the boards and earning a 71-60 victory in the opener.
Now the Valkyries return to Chase on Wednesday night, with a tantalizing chance to push A’ja Wilson and the Aces to the brink. That’s a daunting chore, especially for a franchise that didn’t even begin competition until May 2025, a mere 17 months ago.
But Golden State made history by qualifying for the playoffs in its first season. Then it posted the league’s second-best record (32-12) this year, before surviving a wild elimination game Friday night against Dallas – falling behind by 16 points in the third quarter, making Lacob nervous before an epic, fourth-quarter comeback.
Suddenly, advancing to the Finals doesn’t seem like a preposterous notion. Nor does, potentially, Lacob’s bold promise of a WNBA championship within five years.
“We’re in a pretty good position,” he said of advancing to the Finals. “Obviously, that would be ahead of schedule. I set a very strong goal. There was no guarantee we were going to be in the playoffs last year, but we obviously did it and we built on that this year. So I’m very proud of what they’ve achieved so far.”
Then he caught himself, fully aware Wilson is a four-time MVP and her team has lingered on the mountaintop the way the Warriors once did.
“They are the champions,” Lacob said of the Aces. “They are really good. They’ve won three of the last four (titles), so we are not taking that lightly. They’re a hell of a team. We’ve got to take care of business, because they’re capable of winning three in a row.”
Lacob insisted he hasn’t allowed himself to think much about the Valkyries possibly reaching the Finals, and the wider implications of a second-year franchise landing on the game’s biggest stage. Any optimism stems mostly from his belief in Nakase, general manager Ohemaa Nyanin and their deep roster.
Nyanin gave Nakase an abundance of players willing to put defense first. And that’s exactly what Nakase mandated.
Lacob compared the process to how Steve Kerr quickly established an identity for the 2014-15 Warriors, who rode a blur of ball movement to an unexpected championship.
“You have to give Natalie a tremendous amount of credit for the culture she’s instilled,” Lacob said. “It’s very important to have an identity, a style of play. Natalie established an identity from Day 1, a big-time defensive identity, and that’s really important. …
“I just love this woman’s voracious attitude, how hard she works, how dedicated she is, how smart she is. She’s a fantastic coach.”
The hazards of Nakase’s ferocious work habits emerged on public display in the closing minutes of Friday night’s game. Television cameras showed her animatedly arguing with an official, then abruptly collapsing to the court.
Lacob, sitting in his customary courtside seat across the way, was engaged in conversation and didn’t see what happened. He talked to Nakase in the locker room after the game and learned she hadn’t eaten anything all day.
He expects the incident, which he called “scary,” will prompt Nakase to change her eating habits.
“It was a wake-up call,” Lacob said. “You’ve got to take care of yourself, eat and drink during the course of the day and pace yourself a little bit. She works so hard and she’s so dedicated, so I think it was a good wake-up call.”
Widen the scope, and Lacob finds lessons in the way the Valkyries have climbed into the thick of title contention. Namely, they didn’t make dramatic changes trying to upgrade last year’s 23-21 team.
They added one marquee if undervalued free agent in Williams (three years, $3.75 million), and they also landed a defensive-minded center in Kiah Stokes (two years, $760,000). Stokes played a central role in containing Wilson in Game 1 against Las Vegas.
But the Valkyries also counted on the benefits of keeping their core together, from Burton and Kayla Thornton to Cecilia Zandalasini and Kaila Charles to Tiffany Hayes and Kaitlyn Chen.
“Maybe it looked a little odd to those on the outside, but instead of adding a whole bunch of different players we built on what we thought was a pretty good roster,” Lacob said. “We have a lot of continuity. I believe in continuity, and so does our coach. I think the continuity really helped.”
It helped enough to vault the Valkyries to their first playoff series win, and now to an early lead on the Aces. If Golden State wins two more games in this series, Lacob’s emotional connection could soar into a new realm.
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This article originally published at Valkyries owner Joe Lacob tried to be less emotional about his WNBA team. It’s not working.
