As the WNBA season rolls toward its conclusion and the debut of the 海角社区官网Tempo draws closer, there are two aspects fans of the lone international franchise should pay close attention to.
Veterans who may be available through whatever expansion draft the league settles on.
And veterans who are not from North America.
The Golden State Valkyries, surprisingly right in the thick of the playoff race in their first season of existence, stocked a team by astutely mining the expansion draft process with a heavy bent on European players.
And while the coming NCAA season will unquestionably catch the attention of fans here because of the hype it creates, the college system didn’t do much to turn the Valkyries into a successful team. When Golden State began the season, not one of their 2025 draft picks was on the opening-night roster; it was populated with veterans plucked off existing teams long before the college draft was held.
Some of it was forced on them聽鈥 the Valkyries had the fifth pick in the college draft, which is about where the Tempo will select next spring聽鈥 but leaning heavily on international players and hitting on solid veterans in the expansion draft were intentional choices, ones that Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers is expected to follow.
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鈥淚 think based on what we see via analytics, we can almost kind of predict who鈥檒l be available to us come the expansion draft at the end of the year,鈥 she told The Star earlier this season.
The Valkyries have shown their template can be successful. At the league鈥檚 all-star break, Golden State聽鈥斅爐he first true expansion team in the WNBA since Atlanta in 2008聽鈥 is fighting for one of eight playoff spots. And given that the four previous expansion teams had about a .200 winning percentage in their first years, Golden State鈥檚 10-12 record is exemplary.
Wright Rogers has pointed out she will pay particular attention to Europe and European players when it comes time to stock the Tempo. Of Golden State鈥檚 11 expansion draft picks, seven were Europeans, as was their first overall draft selection, Juste Jocyte of Lithuania.
Wright Rogers said being able to get European players who have professional experience in their homelands but who are technically WNBA rookies is a way to build a veteran roster on rookie scale contracts.
“The international part聽鈥 that wasn’t my mindset,” Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase told ESPN before the season. “It was building the best team that I wanted to build.”
Being able to pivot and handle predictable roster churn has also led to the Valkyries’ quick success and has always been a fact of first-year team building.
Golden State has added young WNBA veterans released by other teams throughout the season. That group, including Mississauga鈥檚 Laeticia Amihere, has kept the team competitive.
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It鈥檚 a plan the Tempo will have to follow. Being able to make quick changes to find a balance is always a challenge of a first-year team.
鈥淚n the expansion draft, we planned for a lot of these athletes to be available, and some were, some weren鈥檛,鈥 Golden State general manager Ohemaa Nyanin told the San Francisco Chronicle. 鈥淲e learned that lesson very early. We planned for the free agents that we were going to land, and some didn鈥檛 happen. So we are erasing some of the things that we thought were going to be and replacing it with something else聽鈥 allowing for the flexibility for it to change.鈥
That flexibility, and understanding experience is a vital component of any immediate growth, should stand the Tempo in good stead as Wright Rogers goes about watching the end of this season and gets ready for the heavy lifting going in 2026.
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