After just two seasons in existence, the Golden State Valkyries are WNBA champions. Thanks to Gabby Williams' Game 7 heroics, the Valkyries overcame the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in a closely contested WNBA Finals.

After a surprising run to make the playoffs last season in their debut campaign as an expansion team, the talk around the Valkyries was that they had no “stars.” Williams brought up that talk during her postgame interview and threw it back in their doubters' faces upon winning the championship.

“All it took was good people. That's it. All we heard last year, ‘We don’t have no stars, we don’t have no talent.’ Yeah right. … We got winners.”

Williams is a legitimate star in her own right, though, and her arrival at the start of season made a massive difference in the Valkyries' sudden rise to the top. She quickly became the foundation for the Valkyries' suffocating defense and finished second to Angel Reese in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

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Meanwhile, despite not being known for offense, she grew into a leading role on that end and came up big with her scoring when it mattered most throughout the postseason. That was especially true in the WNBA Finals against the Dream. After a bunch of middling offensive performances, she came up with two of her best performances in the last two games.

While the Valkyries lost Game 6, she would not be denied in the pivotal Game 7 with 30 big points, 28 coming in the second half. As a result of her clutch performance, she was deservedly named WNBA Finals MVP.