This year's WNBA Finals have unexpectedly given fans a series played between two teams that most people didn't see coming. The Golden State Valkyries and Atlanta Dream will begin the first of potentially seven games on Saturday in San Francisco.
The Valkyries have a story that's tough to beat, and nearly impossible to replicate. Golden State officially joined the WNBA in 2025, after Joe Lacob and other owners finalized an agreement with the league in 2023 and the team held its expansion draft in December 2024. It was clear from early on that the Valkyries were going to be different from any other expansion team the WNBA had ever seen. Lacob invested resources before there was even a roster; the Valkyries have always had the best, and the team has never doubted that they are valuable and important to the organization as a whole.
That the Valkyries have made it to the WNBA Finals in only their second season is a feat that cannot be undersold. It is as logic-defying and groundbreaking as it sounds. Natalie Nakase has coached her roster to success; tough changes to that roster have proven to have been the correct calls. It's both a wild surprise and not surprising at all that the Valkyries are here, and that they are meeting the moment so boldly.
The Atlanta Dream's path to the WNBA Finals is different. As the last expansion team before the Valkyries joined the league, the Dream have unfairly been cast as what not to do. The Dream joined the league for the 2008 season, a completely different time in the WNBA's history. No one had private flights and elite facilities; players were barely making ends meet, and most were looking forward to their overseas job after the W's season concluded.
The Dream has also had to battle through years of uncertainty, mismanagement, political beef, and a lack of funds compared to other teams in the league. Atlanta has made it to the WNBA Finals four times since 2008, but the last time was in 2013 — eons ago in WNBA time. The team has weathered a revolving door of coaches and close opportunities, and has played most of its games at home at the Gateway Center Arena in College Park, miles outside the heart of Atlanta, in front of a maximum 3,500 fans.
It's easy to diminish Gateway and what it means to the fans and to the team, kind of like it's easy to diminish the Dream themselves — but only if you're foolish. The Dream were born as the result of a league in which teams had to fight for everything they wanted, and that spirit is carrying the 2026 roster toward these last games.
A rebirth for the Dream began in 2022, when the team drafted Rhyne Howard. Allisha Gray joined in 2023, and Angel Reese made Atlanta her home this season. The Dream is packed with other talented players, but these three in particular represent something we will all see more of. Somehow, the Dream has retained the team's underdog energy and paired it with a very specific type of basketball that has propelled them to this spot: on the precipice of something spectacular, something unusual, and something generational.
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