{"id":775899,"date":"2026-05-05T22:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T22:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/775899\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T22:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T22:41:13","slug":"valkyries-gm-addresses-controversial-trade-as-criticism-mounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/775899\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries GM addresses controversial trade as criticism mounts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Golden State Valkyries had an immensely successful 2025 season, considering it was the franchise\u2019s inaugural season in the WNBA. The Valkyries made the playoffs in its first year of existence, and although it lost in the first round, there was a lot to be excited about.<\/p>\n<p>Fans were hopeful that Golden State would carry its momentum into the 2026 season, but many are deeply frustrated with the franchise as of late. The Valkyries selected former LSU Tigers Star Flau\u2019jae Johnson with the eighth overall pick in the draft.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson seemed like a perfect fit for an ascending team comprised primarily of role players. However, she was traded to the Seattle Storm for Marta Suarez, the 16th overall pick, and a 2027 second-round pick. Fans were frustrated by the trade alone, but were even more perplexed when Golden State made the tough decision to cut Suarez ahead of the season.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Golden State\u2019s media day, general manager Ohemaa Nyanin spoke on the franchise\u2019s process, maintaining that the Johnson trade was for cap flexibility reasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AnnieCostabile\/status\/2051776986683424906?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">We traded the rights of our No. 8 pick for the rights of the 16th pick<\/a> and a future second\u2026 why we waived a specific athlete is part of understanding the new CBA\u2026There are a lot of things we need to take into consideration when it comes to the status of an athlete, years of experience etc. There\u2019s more to come. There\u2019s a lot more to think through in the next 48 hours,\u201d Nyanin said, according to The Athletic\u2019s Annie Costabile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of athletes are in consideration for these developmental spots\u2026 we want to make sure we aren\u2019t signing athletes &amp; then waiving them, signing &amp; then releasing them. That\u2019s not the type of organization we are. We want to be very intentional with how we use those spots,\u201d Nyanin added.<\/p>\n<p>Still, fans have been deeply critical of the front office\u2019s recent operations.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I wanna yell at you but we\u2019ve never seen a more arrogant 8th seed in sports history so they need a reality check<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jason Maples (@jjmaples55) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jjmaples55\/status\/2051750064746549470?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cJoe Lacob is turning into a pretty bad owner,\u201d someone else added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTt still doesn\u2019t make any sense to me. If you know every year, you\u2019re not gonna use your draft picks, then why wouldn\u2019t you just trade them until it\u2019s a draft you\u2019re really interested in or to get players in the league that you want in exchange,\u201d one fan added.<\/p>\n<p>Only time will tell if Golden State made the right decision.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Golden State Valkyries had an immensely successful 2025 season, considering it was the franchise\u2019s inaugural season in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":775900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[48960,2473,88622,1494,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":["post-775899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-flaujae-johnson","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-ohemaa-nyanin","tag-seattle-storm","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}