December 7, 2024
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Grading Golden State Valkyries’ expansion draft
By The Next
Shafer: 'It's a fun group. You kind of look at it and you see this shell of a good team'
In a new episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, Hunter Cruse, Emily Adler and Lincoln Shafer discuss their takeaways from the 2024 WNBA Expansion Draft on Friday. In that draft, the Golden State Valkyries selected 11 players — one from every other WNBA team except the Seattle Storm — to help build out their inaugural roster for 2025.
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The players the Valkyries selected are:
- Iliana Rupert (from the Atlanta Dream)
- Maria Conde (Chicago Sky)
- Veronica Burton (Connecticut Sun)
- Carla Leite (Dallas Wings)
- Temi Fagbenle (Indiana Fever)
- Kate Martin (Las Vegas Aces)
- Stephanie Talbot (Los Angeles Sparks)
- Cecilia Zandalasini (Minnesota Lynx)
- Kayla Thornton (New York Liberty)
- Monique Billings (Phoenix Mercury)
- Julie Vanloo (Washington Mystics)
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Shafer gives his takeaways about the group that Valkyries general manager Ohemaa Nyanin assembled:
“I like this 11. This group is very fun. Are they going to win games with this specific roster? Don’t worry about it. They’re hanging on for 2026, 2027. But it’s a fun group. You kind of look at it and you see this shell of a good team that’s missing an all-star guard, an all-star center. … You can kind of see what they’re going for. … There’s not very many real ‘3-and-D’ players in the WNBA, and now they have several swings there.”
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Later in the episode, the trio considers what these picks set up the Valkyries to do in free agency and the 2025 college draft. Cruse gives his opinion about the college draft, in which Golden State has the No. 5 overall pick:
“It’s gearing up for them just to just take [19-year-old French center] Dominique Malonga here at No. 5. If you aren’t familiar, [she’s] 6’6. We just got her wingspan measurement — shoutout to Women’s Hoops Masterclass, [which] somehow gets all these wingspan measurements for me — 7’1.
“There’s basically been, what, five or six players, seven players [with that reach] that we have wingspan measurements from dating back to the ’90s, and it’s Margo Dydek, Sylvia Fowles, Brittney Griner, a couple players that were third-round picks and it’s Dominique Malonga. She’s dunked twice this season. She’s already one of the best athletes we’ve ever seen in a big prospect.”
For more on the 2024 WNBA Expansion Draft, read the latest stories from our WNBA beat reporters, which we’ll be rolling out over the next few days.
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