No Kayla Thornton vs. Wings, and other GSV notes

Valkyries kick off the second half of the season at home Friday night against the Dallas Wings before setting off on a long road trip.

There’s a lot going on in the world of the Golden State Valkyries, and since I won’t be able to do a quick turnaround for Friday night’s Dallas Wings game, I thought I’d do a quick preview of it and other things in GSV-land. There’ll be plenty of games in short succession in the next week or so that I’ll get to quickly, in case you were worried.

Valkyries without Thornton vs. Wings

For the first time in 23 games, or the first time in franchise history, to be melodramatic, the Golden State Valkyries won’t have Kayla Thornton on the court. According to the team, Thornton “is undergoing evaluation for a lower leg injury. She will not play in tomorrow’s contest against the Dallas Wings.”

That’s not ideal for the Valks: Thornton, named to her first All-Star team this year, has led Golden State in relatively important things like minutes, shots, steals, and points. With KT on the court, Golden State’s offensive rating is 102.9 (points per 100 possessions); with KT off the court, it is 97.1 (the team rating is 100.2). The Valkyries will especially miss her floor spacing (6.5 threes per game is also comfortably a team high) and her second chance creation. With Thornton, the Valkyries average 4.14 more points per 100 second-chance possessions, and score at a much more efficient clip on those second chances, per pbpstats.

Actually, outside of Thornton and Veronica Burton, no other Valkyrie has played even 50% of the team’s minutes due to a combination of Eurobasket, injuries, and rotation changes. Golden State is the only team with such a sharp distribution.

The only team with a relatively similar profile is Dallas, tonight’s opponent, who has leaned on Arike Ogunbowale and Paige Bueckers amidst some lineup turmoil and roster changes of its own.

Losing Thornton also means that the Valkyries will likely start just one player who also opened the team’s loss to the Wings earlier this season. That game, in the middle of Eurobasket, saw Golden State start Burton, Thornton, Carla Leite, Monique Billings, and Stephanie Talbot. Leite and Billings will likely come off the bench (though Billings could potentially start in Thornton’s place) and Talbot—more on this later—has since been waived.

Golden State will thus reclaim its place atop the unique starting lineup standings tonight, with a potential grudge match against the Connecticut Sun to follow on Sunday.

Here’s a good piece from Mia Wachtel of the San Francisco Chronicle diving further into the absence of Thornton. Also, here’s KT on a podcast with the legendary Sue Bird.

Fly, Fly vs. the Wings

After the last matchup, I looked at how Bueckers and Ogunbowale were able to make star adjustments to the Valkyries’ high-pressure coverages. We’ll see how the gameplan changes without Thornton, one of Golden State’s most important matchup defenders. This iteration of the matchup has completely different lineups: Dallas also has a lot of changes, including starting Li Yueru, getting back bigs Luisa Geiselsöder and Teaira McCowan, and the emergence of Haley Jones (I am a big Haley Jones fan), who played more than 30 minutes in the Wings’ most recent win over Seattle.

That being said, here are a few offensive things I’d look for from Golden State in this one. The first is in transition: the Valkyries found some success pushing the ball against Dallas in the last matchup.

Even without Thornton, the team’s best finisher on the break, a healthier Tiffany Hayes and a well-rested Valkyries squad should push the ball. Dallas’ recent dependence on less athletic bigs could enable Golden State’s to beat them down the floor, as Amihere and Billings did above, or get favorable cross-matches in transition, as Burton’s three showed. Watch out for the offensive rebounding, though, and those Ogunbowale ghost screens.

Dallas was rather good at setting the pace overall in the first matchup. They forced the Valkyries into their second-slowest average possession length of the season, 16.59 seconds (including second-chance points), slower only than the Valkyries’ season-worst offensive performance Seattle. The Valkyries did score their most second-chance points of the season, but look for them to push the pace to win the tone-setting battle (Dallas will push plenty on their end).

I also like how the transition game can incorporate new addition Iliana Rupert’s trail three and drag screen slips, as I mentioned here. Golden State also leaned into two other halfcourt actions I mentioned in conjunction with Rupert: horns slash and “145” wide into stagger screens.

Look out for a couple of those, with or without Rupert, and certainly without the seven points (two tough fadeaways, one three-point foul) Thornton created on those looks.

Finally, Carla Leite (and, offensively, Laeticia Amihere) had a strong outing against the Wings in the first matchup. She posted a career-high (tied, at any rate) four assists and making good decisions on offense against a Dallas team pretty committed to its drop coverage on her.

Considering the success that Seattle had packing the paint against Golden State in the last game before the All-Star break, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of the same from Dallas, especially with their slower bigs, their stronger point-of-attack defenders (literally), and their inclination to drop against the weak-shooting lineup that Golden State played in the first game. Can the Valkyries hit their shots in response? That’s been the question of the season.

Talbot, Bibby sign elsewhere

The big recent signing in New York was, of course, the acquisition of ex-Valkyrie Stephanie Talbot. Well, that and the reputed agreement with European and former WNBA star forward Emma Meesseman (who, uh, has some experience vs. Rupert), but only one of those two is a Ballhalla legend. While Talbot never found the shooting stroke or playing time she wanted in Golden State, the team will always be grateful for her post defense.

I like the move for the Liberty; it’s a low-risk addition of another quality veteran, even if it is, ultimately, an attempt to re-create 2024 Kayla Thornton in the aggregate.

Meanwhile, the Indiana Fever signed Chloe Bibby to a seven-day contract. I think this is an excellent move, and it’s not a total surprise, considering that Bibby had her best game of the year against the Fever (one of five she played for Golden State).

A true stretch four is an excellent archetype for the Fever to add. Bibby’s game is the sort I thought Golden State would be all over, and they were, and had the wing depth been thinner I think Bibby would have gotten more run. A seven-day contract isn’t much guarantee of anything, but it’s an opportunity for players to continue building their profile and ingratiate themselves with more teams.

Good luck, Steph and Chloe.