How Gabby Williams’ Bay Area roots led her to Valkyries in free agency

SAN FRANCISCO – Gabby Williams choosing the Golden State Valkyries came down to more than just a basketball decision. It’s more than an All-Star choosing a team she believes she can succeed with, and it’s more than the three-year max contract she inked.

It was a homecoming.

“Felt like a perfect full circle moment,” Williams said of her signing in her introductory press conference ahead of Golden State’s preseason game against the Seattle Storm.

“Because growing up here, playing basketball here, I spent all my AAU years here. I’m from Reno, which is just right over the mountain. Grew up in Alameda, played for the Bay Area Bulldogs, played for play for the Mission Rec Center Rebels.”

Williams’ roots run deep in the Bay Area. Along with spending her basketball youth in East Bay gyms, Williams’ family is deeply entrenched in the area. Her sister Kayla played at Cal in Berkeley for a year, and her younger brothers, raised in the Bay, both go to school at Cal State, along with having a bevy of extended family and friends in the area.

In deciding where to go next, there was an intimacy Williams could not pass up. A connection that only a Bay Area native could understand, hence her decision.

“Just knowing what women’s basketball means to the Bay Area and what has what it has meant here for decades, I know up close and personal exactly just what it means to be a female athlete here,” Williams said. “So that definitely played into my decision as well.”

What Gabby Williams’ choice means to the Valkyries

General manager Ohemaa Nyanin was visibly emotional in Williams’ introductory presser and explained the sheer amount of joy she and the organization felt when the 2025 All-Star made her fateful decision.

“We were patiently waiting for Gabby to make her decision,” Nyanin recounted. “And so as soon as I heard, [I called] Mr. Joe was first, and then I FaceTimed Jess and Natalie. They were both in different locations, and we were laughing, crying, happy. You can tell who’s the person who was crying, but it was just like a moment of joy, you know? Pure joy. Something that I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just me that took it in.”

It’s a joy that stems from validation because Williams’ decision validated the culture the Valkries worked tirelessly to build.  Williams chose the Valkyries because she wants to win. Because she sees Golden State as a place where that’s possible. Her choice legitimized them as a franchise that prioritizes winning.

“There were two or three key factors in making my decision,” Williams explained. “And number one was, where am I going to win? Am I going to be a part of somewhere that’s going to have a winning culture?”

It’s one thing for a team to preach competitiveness and flaunt their winning culture. The Valkyries did plenty of that and backed it up throughout their inaugural season. But it’s another thing for a star player of Williams’ caliber to validate it by choosing to go there because they believe it from afar.

And that success, that proof that the Valkyries’ culture is enticing, in and of itself, is a victory for Nyanin and coach Natalie Nakase. Perhaps Williams doesn’t choose Golden State if the expansion franchise tanked their first season, which they easily could have done. Instead, they went the harder route. They competed, clinching a playoff spot and demonstrating they do prioritize winning. That in turn attracted Williams to the program.

“Even though this is a newer team, I strongly believe, and I feel the competitiveness and the want to win here,” Williams said. “In my free agency meeting, that was just all we kind of talked about. [It] was how we were going to win games, the way we’re going to do it.”

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