Gabby Williams Leads Valkyries With Career-Best Scoring
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- Gabby Williams signed with the Golden State Valkyries as a free agent after a 20-minute call with owner Joe Lacob, who told her: "This is why we're going to win, this is why it would be silly for you to go anywhere else, this is why we're going to have longevity. I want to build dynasties here."
- Williams is averaging a career-high 16.3 points per game through 18 games, leading the Valkyries in scoring while still contributing 3.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals as their top perimeter defender.
- Williams is shooting a career-best 37.1% from three-point range and has already made 36 threes with more than half the season remaining, putting her on pace to eclipse her prior career high of 50.
- Head coach Natalie Nakase called Williams "the most coachable star that I have been around," noting Williams texts her after every game asking what she can improve and constantly requests film clips.
- Williams earned Best Defensive Player honors at the 2024 Paris Olympics playing for France (averaging 15.5 points en route to a silver medal) and was UConn's national Defensive Player of the Year in 2016-17.
- The Valkyries cycled 16 different starting lineups last season and lost leading scorer Kayla Thornton to a season-ending knee injury after the All-Star break, but never collapsed — a resilience Williams cited as the reason she signed.
- Williams spent chunks of her teenage years in Alameda, played AAU ball for the Bay Area Bulldawgs and Mission Rec Rebels, and now lives within driving distance of her siblings for the first time since adolescence.
Why it matters: A first-time free agent who had never won a championship picked a second-year expansion franchise over more established suitors; 18 games in, her career-best 16.3 points and 37.1% three-point shooting are converting Lacob's dynasty pitch into on-court production faster than last year's 16-lineup, injury-ravaged inaugural season would have suggested.
