The Golden State Valkyries would not be WNBA champions if it weren’t for Kiah Stokes. The now four-time champion played excellent defense on Jessica Shepard, A’ja Wilson, and Angel Reese. She set a new record for most blocks in a finals series and was huge on the boards, grabbing more than ten rebounds in several games.
Stokes isn’t much of a scorer. She averaged just 3.6 points per game in the regular season. But when games mattered the most, she stepped up as a scorer, too.
She scored 11 points in a Game 3 overtime win to eliminate her former team in the semifinals. She also scored 13 points in a massive Game 5 win in the finals, unexpectedly sinking three 3-pointers, and then scored 8 big points in Game 7. Her biggest bucket of the night came after an offensive rebound with less than a minute left in the game, which extended the Valkyries’ lead to seven points.
Stokes did all that while having the third-lowest salary on the Valkyries roster (not counting Aminata Gueye). Even rookie Juste Jocyte, who barely played this season, made more than Stokes’s $375,000.
Signing Stokes to that deal was a stroke of genius. After she played only limited minutes for the Aces in 2025 and was superseded by NaLyssa Smith in the starting lineup, Stokes’s free-agent value couldn’t have been great. Still, she went into the offseason as a three-time champion and one of the best rim protectors in the league. Nevertheless, she got only a fraction of the salary Kaila Charles, who struggled to even make a WNBA roster in 2025, secured.
Kiah Stokes’s contract is an absolute steal
Most WNBA teams gave out million-dollar contracts to the players they hoped would be their starting centers. A’ja Wilson, Brionna Jones, Shakira Austin, Aliyah Boston, Alanna Smith, Jonquel Jones, Dearica Hamby, Temi Fagbenle, Brittney Griner, and Ezi Magbegor all signed million-dollar contracts for the 2026 season. Not all of them played much due to injuries, but GMs had deemed them worth that much money as starting bigs before the season.
The Valkyries had originally planned to have Iliana Rupert as their starting center and signed her to a $450,000 contract—the second-lowest deal for projected starting centers going into the season behind the Phoenix Mercury’s Natasha Mack. Rupert had to miss the season due to pregnancy, and Stokes stepped into the starting lineup, vastly outplaying her contract.
The best part: Stokes signed a two-year deal and is set to make $386,250 next season. That’s the lowest salary the Valkyries currently have on the books for the 2027 season. That’s nothing for a championship-level starting center.
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