WNBA Star Breanna Stewart Calls Out Valkyries' Playoff Dilemma

The Golden State Valkyries have exceeded everyone's expectations for their inaugural 2025 season, officially becoming the first expansion team in WNBA history to make the playoffs in their first year.

Through the first 41 games of the season, the Valkyries have a 23-18 record, sitting in sixth place in the league with just three games left until the playoffs.

Led by WNBA Coach of the Year candidate Natalie Nakase, the Valkyries have been one of the biggest surprises the league has ever seen.

Valkyries' playoff dilemma The Valkyries have had the best home fanbase in the WNBA this season, selling out every home game and having the highest average attendance in the league, but they will not have the same advantage in the playoffs.

The Valkyries' home arena is the Chase Center, but that is not where they will be playing their first-ever home playoff game.

Valkyries president Jess Smith informed season ticket holders that they will not be able to host their first-round playoff game at Chase Center due to scheduling conflicts.

Instead, the Valkyries will be playing at SAP Center in San Jose, which is about an hour away from San Francisco.

This is a very unfortunate situation, but they have had these plans to host the Laver Cup, a big tennis tournament, at Chase Center before they even knew they were getting an expansion WNBA team.

Breanna Stewart tells it how it is Of course, this is a poor situation for the Valkyries to be in, as there does not seem to be anything they can do about it, but New York Liberty star and WNBA legend Breanna Stewart thinks it is disrespectful.

On Monday, Stewart got brutally honest about the situation.

You want to think that youre past it, Stewart told SFGATE .

We want to think that were, like, better than this.

Listen, sometimes its out of the control of everyone involved.

But its just...

You dont see it happening with the NBA.

The Valkyries' fans have done everything this season to earn a home playoff game, and now this monumental, first home playoff game in franchise history will not be in Chase Center.

Especially for the fans, playoff games are, for them too, a sense of accomplishment a little bit, Stewart said.

And just making sure that, while everything else is getting booked well in advance, so does the WNBA schedule and playoffs.

The Valkyries will simply need to get out of the first round in order to give "BallHalla" a legitimate home playoff game, and picking up a win while in San Jose will be very important.

Related Articles.

This article has been shared from the original article on si, here is the link to the original article.