Rough Notes: Ballhalla Is Winning The Vibes
6.1.25 / Minnesota Lynx @ Golden State Valkyries / Chase Center / San Francisco, California
These are Game Notes: the original ‘rough notes,’ a travelogue of women’s basketball and its evolutions from arenas across the country + my own unexpected misadventures court-side. Game Notes are sometimes free and sometimes just for paid subscribers.
Ballhalla is a real and beautiful place, but to get there you have to travel through something of a dystopia. Here, in a dense crook of San Francisco, Waymo driverless cars choke up the streets and modernist buildings crowd the sky like the movie set of a late stage capitalist apocalypse. People have five thousand ways of getting to the Chase Center, which is located in a bay front pocket crawling with traffic like a mattress full of bed bugs. Some people drive part of the way, or bike or walk, others take the ferry, or take BART and then transfer to Muni, and many do a combination of 3-4 of those things. It’s what I would call a fully embodied schlep, if not the true battle of Ballhalla. But that’s another story, for another time.
Once inside Chase Center, the hallowed walls of Ballhalla, you can finally relax, becoming one with the Golden State Valkyries and its fandom. It feels, um, amazing. Here we are, delivered fresh to the 2025 season, a bunch of buoyant WNBA newborns. We’ve hardly even learned to boo anyone except Kelsey Plum (notable Los Angeles Lover and Opening Night Heartbreaker.) We happily buy meals at any price (there are so many dining options!), and we’re not yet jaded by things like way-too-long play reviews or the sight of Cathy Englebert. We have only a scant memory of anything that took place before “V’s up.” We are game for anything and cheeky with optimism and I’ll do my best to chronicle it all via Rough Notes’ Instagram.
When I arrive late to the Valkyries/Lynx matchup on Sunday evening, I get trapped briefly in the arena’s underbelly, my own fault of course, scrambling up a flight of stairs before finding the press area like a remote trailhead. I am not yet used to the wilds of Chase. This time, unlike the previous two home games, I’m too late to grab dinner from the media room, (which must be the Ritz Carlton of WNBA media rooms), where the food buffet includes unlimited frozen chocolate soft serve and oreos, to say the least.
This isn’t a game I think the Valkyries are going to win. They’re up against perhaps the best team in the WNBA, the Minnesota Lynx, who barely lost last year’s title in a game that they would appeal to a federal court if possible. It’s not, and so all the Lynx can do is lament, and inject this injured pride into their very probable and highly terrifying run for a championship during the 2025 season.
It’s nearly the end of the 1st quarter when I get to press row, where I manage to get a seat to probably the most experienced women’s basketball journalist I’ve ever sat with. She is Cheryl Coward and she knows millions of things about basketball; it’s a joy/honor to chat and laugh together a tiny bit. Cheryl tells me the Valkyries have the highest defensive rebound percentage in the league, which kind of makes my jaw drop and strikes me as a statistical gem. This team would run through a brick wall, if that could win a game for Golden State, and they look no different tonight against Minnesota: ripping the basketball down off the Lynx’s missed shots and totally out-rebounding the almost-championship team, who are devoid of any offensive rhythm.
the best valkyries manicure i’ve spotted so far & some guy from the MNBA who is actually doing a really good job complaining about calls as our collective union lawyer. Cheryl shares several more brilliant thoughts with me, including a reminder that the original Liberty mascot was a fluffy golden retriever named Maddie (how tough are you now, Brooklyn?) She also says Sue Bird’s face mask became something of a good luck charm for her, which comes up because the Valkyries’ oldest yet coolest player Tiffany Hayes is debuting her own facial contraption after a nose injury that left her apparently just “fine” but kept her from playing for several games. Finally, Tip is back, our bloodied heavy metal king!
If there’s one thing I’ll admit wanting for the Golden State Valkyries, it’s to upstage the New York Liberty’s marketing efforts in every minute way possible. Or at least, that’s my thought when the Valkyries Vibes are unleashed after the 1st quarter for what I’m pretty sure is their debut performance, awash in rainbow flags to the #1 song you’ll get sick of this month, Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” Because sure, the New York Liberty may have the Timeless Torches, but the Valkyries are even less ageist; we are fucking multi generational. Yes, that’s how you run with the WNBA big guns in 2025.
The Valks are uneven (& possibly over-reliant) on shots from behind the arc, but when we’re draining threes — and we are, in the 2nd quarter against the Lynx — we look not like a wobbly expansion team, but cohesive underdogs with lethal potential. We go nuts in that 2nd quarter, especially Kate Martin, who has perhaps the best few minutes of her career: a bandit in transition with two left-handed layups followed by back-to-back threes (her final three, called off as a travel before the shot sails through the net, results in Kate bellowing to the ref with the energy of someone starving on Survivor losing a reward challenge.) All of a sudden, Kate’s undernourished season turns into a career high 14 points before the half, and the Bay Area Martinis’ brains explode onto the floor.
Throughout the game, I realize how endeared I am to Veronica “Backcourt Bandit” Burton these days. She’s easily playing the best basketball of her career, despite the fact that she was cut last season from the team that drafted her. I was struck by something head coach Natalie Nakase said recently about Veronica: that she told her coaches she wanted to be “in an environment where people believe in me.” “So that’s what we did,” Natalie told reporters. They developed a relationship, both on and off the court, rooted in belief & Veronica’s willingness to “work extremely hard.” The effect, so far, seems to be transformative: Veronica is steely as ever, but no longer subdued, a force of confidence and creativity with newfound offensive threat. She looks like someone who was finally allowed to make art at her own pace.
The thing is, no matter how much the Valkyries over-achieve, Minnesota is still a completely good team. Napheesa Collier is a leading candidate for MVP of the league, and the Valkyries don’t have an answer for her feather light fade aways and graceful yet merciless post play. Plus, the StudBudz (who have newly launched their Twitch stream media empire) are annoyingly good, Courtney Williams’ stop & pop shushing the crowd like a regular gust of wind and Natisha Heideman performing with a suspiciously high 50% field goal percentage this season, fine, good for her.
The Valkyries’ shooting goes cold-er as the game progresses and toward the end of the third quarter, things start to slide apart (never mind the unhinged Kate Martin / Napheesa jump ball, lols!) This leads into a 27-5 run by the Lynx. In the fourth quarter, we stop scoring all together, still scrappy on defense but slowing down, overpowered by Minnesota.
That’s when a narrow inbound against the sideline to Tiffany Hayes results in new lower case villain Natisha Hiedeman falling on top of Tip as she falls out of bounds, landing against a fan’s kneecaps (and next to a woman holding a small dog, who reacts not at all.) Tiffany on the other hand rips off her mask and is practically lifted to the locker room while the crowd, betrayed, jeers in shock. Tip, you are very brave, and great at leaping all about, but we need you to keep your face on. We’re thinking of you.
The game ends with a tough little run by the Valkyries. After Veronica Burton hits a step back three (in Courtney Williams’ face) to bring the team within 13, the arena erupts, and it’s clear: Valkyries math is mathing again. We operate on our own system in San Francisco. We’re irreverent. We treat double digit deficits like 4 point thrillers. We’re enraptured with the fight of a team that might not be winning all the games, but is most certainly winning the vibes. Only in Ballhalla does the crowd stand in ovation for an 11 point loss.
And why not? I am obsessed with Valkyries fans, dropped off by a stork on the doorstep of women’s basketball history. No fan base seems more overly prepared to embrace a WNBA team than the Bay Area. The truth is, I thought this might annoy me (Why a team here instead of more than one single team in the South? I questioned alongside WNBA Twitter at the time — still a solid point.) But look: I surrender. I’ve drunk the kool-aid. The franchise has done a great job of reflecting the Bay Area’s best qualities, namely queerness and the incredible cultural footprint of Oakland. Fine, there might be a few more good qualities about the Bay. I’ll work on naming the way they come alive inside Ballhalla.
I can’t wait to better understand how these ‘vibes’ turn into memories, into traditions, into lore. Who will be our Heroes and Villains? Will whimsical fans start to stack rocks at select points along the route to Chase, like warriors marking the trail through Bay Area traffic? What love stories will unfold on the super gay Valkyries ferry? How far will our enthusiasm take us, and will fans ever chafe at the business decisions of this corporate league, betrayed to find it’s not actually the Bay Area’s latest grassroots community collective? And which player will we eventually adore as the Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade after the Valks win a WNBA championship in under… well, who knows. There’s an amazing and terrible amount to come.
"Perhaps the best team in the WNBA." Beg to differ! The Lynx have struggled against multiple teams this season. I mean, they barely beat Connecticut on their home court. And looked not great when Phee was out. They won that game over Phoenix on the back of Mercury errors more than great play from the Lynx.
They're a very good team, no question. But there's a consistently better and deeper team in the W right now.