{"id":7736,"date":"2026-08-25T21:10:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7736"},"modified":"2026-08-25T21:10:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:10:36","slug":"kurtenbach-the-valkyries-loudly-announced-themselves-as-legitimate-wnba-title-contenders-too-bad-the-league-is-hitting-pause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7736","title":{"rendered":"Kurtenbach: The Valkyries loudly announced themselves as legitimate WNBA title contenders. Too bad the league is hitting pause"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>If you asked me a week ago whether the Golden State Valkyries were legitimate WNBA championship contenders, I would have said no.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7734\">High school football 2026 preseason rankings: Bay Area News Group Top 25<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For all the positives this team displays, there were still too many questions, particularly about the offense. How about they show they can beat the Minnesota Lynx, first?<\/p>\n<p>But that was last week.<\/p>\n<p>This week? Game on.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, forget the logical expansion timeline and tighten up Joe Lacob\u2019s five-year plan. On Monday night in Minneapolis, the Valkyries didn\u2019t just beat the four-time champion Lynx \u2014 this league\u2019s standard-bearer \u2014 no, they snatched their lunch money, dismantled their mystique, and planted a flag atop the league.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t a feel-good startup story anymore. It\u2019s a title assault.<\/p>\n<p>Just last week, Minnesota strolled into San Francisco, delivered a clinical beatdown, and strutted off the floor like brash royalty reminding the peasants of their place. They made sure Golden State knew there are levels to this business.<\/p>\n<p>Monday was the violent rebuttal.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Valkyries didn\u2019t strut or gloat through their victory. No, they just choked the life out of the league\u2019s tried-and-trues.<\/p>\n<p>They turned Napheesa Collier \u2014 the second-best player in this league \u2014 into just another frustrated forward searching for answers. They clamped down on Olivia Miles, the rookie superstar doing a hell of a Steph Curry impression, and put her in a defensive straitjacket, holding her to single-digit scoring.<\/p>\n<p>That wasn\u2019t luck. It was basketball claustrophobia. Welcome to Valkatraz.<\/p>\n<p>But, then again, that\u2019s the standard operating procedure for this team. No one questions the Valks\u2019 defense.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The offense? That\u2019s a different story.<\/p>\n<p>And the Valks authored one on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The ball zipped around the perimeter with the kind of ruthless precision that used to belong exclusively to prime Warriors operations. Tiffany Hayes was everywhere, orchestrating the chaos at the point and then casually locking down the paint, too. Veronica Burton attacked, attacked, attacked, Cecilia Zandalasini was the matchup nightmare for Minnesota that Valks coach Natalie Nakase envisioned, and Gabby Williams found just enough offense amid a cold-shooting streak.<\/p>\n<p>Golden State was positionless, relentless, and completely devoid of fear. That\u2019s the good stuff. That\u2019s the winning formula.<\/p>\n<p>When your defense travels every single night, you don\u2019t need perfection on offense. You just need a pulse.<\/p>\n<p>Monday night, after a tough start, the Valkyries had a jackhammer.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it was a one-off \u2014 a juiced-up revenge game that brought out their best.<\/p>\n<p>But if that is the new order of operations for the Valks, it changes everything on the expectation front.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7732\">Real estate mega-merger apartment deals in Bay Area top $700 million<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Which brings us to the ultimate buzzkill: the WNBA calendar.<\/p>\n<p>Just as the Bay Area\u2019s newest contender hits maximum velocity, the league is shutting down for a two-and-a-half-week break for the FIBA World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Only in the W does a league build unprecedented, white-hot momentum and then decide, \u201cYou know what fans really want? Absolute silence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Send the college kids to play FIBA. Why are we halting the best professional basketball product of the summer so administrators can hold committee meetings in Geneva?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the kind of bureaucratic brain cramp that makes you wonder if sports executives are secretly tasked with preventing their own success.<\/p>\n<p>And I can\u2019t help but wonder if the Valks can avoid what happened to the San Jose Earthquakes this summer. The Quakes went into the break looking like MLS royalty and came out looking like they\u2019d forgotten how to tie their cleats.<\/p>\n<p>Golden State is built of sturdier stuff, to be sure, but you never want to put an inferno on ice.<\/p>\n<p>Especially if you\u2019re a Bay Area sports fan.<\/p>\n<p>Look around the local landscape. The Giants are putting crowds to sleep, the 49ers are trapped in a daytime soap opera, and the Warriors \u2014 who have given you no reason to believe \u2014 and the Sharks, who have \u2014 aren\u2019t playing yet.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, the only team in Northern California looking capable of booking City Hall for a civic celebration plays its home games in purple and black.<\/p>\n<p>Monday was the kind of prove-it game that can buoy a team all the way through to the postseason and be called upon when the going gets tough there. It might have been the biggest regular-season win in franchise history.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7730\">Gov. Newsom lists Sacramento-area mansion for $7.5 million, may flee city governor called \u2018so dull\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a feeling this team won\u2019t want to lose. Serious momentum.<\/p>\n<p>If only the WNBA knew what to do with something like that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Valkyries&#8217; beat-down of the Minnesota Lynx was the kind of prove-it win that can buoy a team to a title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Kurtenbach: The Valkyries loudly announced themselves as legitimate WNBA title contenders. 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