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The Golden State Valkyries are an WNBA expansion team that’s scheduled to make its debut in the upcoming season. A sister franchise of Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors, the Valkyries will play their home games at Chase Center.
In the build up to the upcoming draft and the season, the team finished setting up its locker room. USA Today’s Meghan L. Hall shared a walkthrough of the locker room, along with a few photos of the entire facility, on X on Friday.
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It goes without saying that the locker room was state-of-the-art as it is located in Chase Center, one of the newest arenas in the NBA. It was inaugurated in 2019 and cost about $1.4 billion, as per Business Insider. The arena was self-financed as the city of San Francisco does spend public money toward sports stadiums.
“That's just not the philosophy in San Francisco, so knowing we're gonna build in San Francisco, we knew that would be the case,” former Warriors president Rick Welts said in March 2019.
The Golden State Valkyries locker room is different from the one that the Warriors use. True to its name, the WNBA locker room is shaped in the form of a V.
In a separate post shared by the team on social media, it also shared snapshots of the training room and coaching/staffing spaces.
The Valkyries locker room rivals the top NBA locker rooms, including the Warriors':
The LA Clippers inaugurated the Intuit Dome before the 2024-25 season and it cost a whooping $2 billion. It is the newest basketball arena across the NBA and WNBA. While the Clippers locker room is more spacious than that of the Valkyries, the latter's aesthetic could give the LA-based team a run for its money.
Golden State Valkyries named Natalie Nakase as their coach for inaugural season
When the new WNBA season tips off on May 16, there will be 13 teams as opposed to the 12 teams in 2024, with the Golden State Valkyries being the latest addition. They will start their season with an in-state rivalry game against the LA Sparks.
As the team gears up for the season ahead, it announced Natalie Nakase as its inaugural coach.
“Being named the head coach of the Golden State Valkyries is a lifelong dream come true,” Nakase said in a statement released by the Valkyries in October. “I am thankful to Joe Lacob, Ohemaa Nyanin and the Golden State front office for entrusting me with this responsibility.
“We are committed to building a winning culture of grit, hard work and competitiveness. We will strive to improve, compete, and ultimately bring home a championship for our fans and this organization.”
