Reaching the WNBA Finals in just their second season after joining the league in 2025, the Golden State Valkyries have defied expectations. Gabby Williams has played a crucial role in their historic run. But as Golden State prepares to face the Atlanta Dream, with Game 1 less than 24 hours away, Williams has little interest in the recognition coming her way. After years of feeling overlooked by the media, the Valkyries star is making it clear that the sudden praise hasn’t changed her perspective.
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“The media’s never respected me. I’ve never expected them to. So that’s always been in the back of my head,” Williams said during Finals media day on Friday ahead of Game 1. “I’ve never paid any mind to the media, so if the media’s praising me now, I don’t care.”
Gabby Williams entered the league in 2018 and has since played for the Chicago Sky and Seattle Storm before joining the Valkyries ahead of this season. Yet despite her experience, the 30-year-old was often viewed as a role player. Golden State, however, gave her a bigger platform this season, and she made the most of it.
Williams helped lead the Valkyries to a 32-12 regular-season record and the second seed in the playoffs before they eliminated the Dallas Wings and defending champions Las Vegas Aces to book their place in the Finals. To do so, Williams averaged a career-best 14.4 points per game in the regular season, alongside 3.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists, before taking her production up to another level in the postseason, where she averaged 22.7 points, 4.8 rebounds and four assists per game while shooting 40.5% from beyond the arc.
The Valkyries’ forward also earned her second consecutive All-Star selection and finished runner-up in the Defensive Player of the Year voting. So in the wake of Golden State’s Cinderella run, the recognition has finally caught up with her performances. But the veteran guard has not forgotten what it felt like to do the work without receiving the same attention.
That frustration also surfaced on October 9, following Golden State’s Game 3 victory over the Aces. Gabby Williams, in her post-game interview, suggested the Valkyries had spent much of the season without the support they believed their performances deserved, even as they continued to prove themselves on the court.
“We ’bout to have some bandwagoners because we ain’t getting no love all season,” she said. “Nobody believed in us, but honestly it made us smile cause we were like all we need is each other, we just need to believe in each other… We just felt that we had something worth fighting for.”
Still, while Williams has made her frustration with the media clear, the veteran forward revealed that recognition from her peers has meant far more to her.
“But what has touched me the most has been… Like I’m hugging Jewell (Loyd) after the game, when we beat them, and she’s like, ‘Hey, this is your moment now,'” Gabby Williams said, recalling October 9, when the Valkyries completed a 3-0 sweep of the Las Vegas Aces.
“Paige (Bueckers) reaching out to me, AC reaching out to me, Sue Bird. All these players who have seen closely what I’ve gone through my entire career, who have reached out to me and support… that’s really touched me because they’ve seen kind of my path through it,” she added.
The WNBA Finals will now offer an even bigger stage for the Valkyries to build on their momentum and attract even more national attention, as they became the first women’s sports team to generate more than $100 million in revenue.
For Gabby Williams, however, the growing spotlight is not what defines this moment; it’s the respect of those who have witnessed her journey firsthand that appears to carry the greatest weight. And as she prepares to lead Golden State against Atlanta in its first Finals appearance, she has little interest in changing her stance just because the outside world has finally caught up.