Rough Notes: Lavender Scare Volume 2

A tumble of Valkyries games, fiancés & messy math, plus: a final courtside season from Barclays.

Lavender Scare is a weekly-ish column during the WNBA season from in and around the world of the Golden State Valkyries: expansive observations & provocative ideas about women’s basketball & its power to change everything, including you. Lavender Scare is available in full only for paid subscribers.

• Here we goooo, into the second volume of Lavender Scare, a weekly-ish column about the Golden State Valkyries (and so much more) that’s as unafraid as Gabby Williams casually dropping 10 points in the 1st quarter. That’s exactly what she did last night to start out the Valkyries’ 97-70 victory over the Connecticut Sun.

• The Valks are now 4-2; somehow, that’s the same number of victories as reigning champion Las Vegas Aces and brand-new team Portland Fire, and twice the wins of original WNBA franchise Phoenix Mercury. What the heck could happen next?!

• By the way: if you’re new to Lavender Scare, read last week’s first column to get a sense of the layout + the vibe here.

the birds-eye view from ballhalla

Justė the Pro

• Valkyries fans waited 406 days to see Justė Jocytė (her name is pronounced YOU-steh Yo-CHEE-teh) compete in a violet uniform after being chosen as Golden State’s first-ever draft selection and the 5th overall pick on April 14, 2025. By the 4th quarter of the Valkyries game on Memorial Day of 2026, after the entire bench and also developmental player Ashten Prechtel had already checked in, Justė finally leapt from her seat and onto the court. And then, instantly, she scored her first WNBA points:

• So yes: Justė is real. While she may appear to be a 20 year-old rookie, she actually became a professional basketball player in Europe at age 13, and could give advice about meditation-inspired game strategy by age 15. Back then, Justė apparently idolized Marine Johannès; in 2026, she’s now teammates with Marine’s “partner,” Gabby Williams, and determined to beat the Liberty again at any cost (we can only hope). More on Marine & Gabby in a minute.

Split ends…

• The Valks won & lost a game on the road, splitting their first East Coast trip with a “dominant” victory over the New York Liberty (87-70) & a bloating loss to the Indiana Fever (90-82). To me, the Indiana game felt rushing through a meal only to find that by the entree, you can no longer chew. On their second night of back-to-back road trip matchups (calling Indianapolis the “East Coast” is absurd to me, by the way), Golden State just lost their bite a little bit.

• Problematically, this happened during the very first time Caitlin Clark actually shot well against the Bay Area’s first WNBA team, hitting 4 of 9 shots from three point range, which is exactly double the number of total threes she’d previously made against the Valkyries. Compared with a dismal shooting night for Janelle Salaün, who clearly does not speak entitled-barely-left-Iowa-whiny-white-girl, the Valkyries flatlined a bit. Which is all to say: I can’t wait for Indiana to show up in the fortress of Ballhalla on Thursday (which, for this particular game, I think should be closed to fans in Fever red traveling from the northeast suburbs of Sacramento, thank you very much.)

• On the other hand, the Valkyries’ victory over the New York Liberty told a terrifying story of GSV’s potential, and also an important lesson, according to my mom: “We’re more afraid of our coach than they are of their coach.” I tend to agree.

choose your fighter

The biggest victory? These Gabby & Marine candids.

• If you didn’t already know, then you need to learn: the Valkyries’ Gabby “obviously I’m not straight” Williams is engaged to the Liberty’s Marine Johannès (longtime teammates on the French Women’s National Basketball Team.) You might think Gabby is from Reno, Nevada, but she’s actually multidimensional, with French-American dual-citizenship and a fluency in flirting by being both mischievous and understated at the same time (so European!)

• So while some people were watching the Valkyries and Liberty play each other last Friday, others were watching Gabby & Marine, who rarely are assigned to guard one another directly. When they do, it is the stuff of shooting stars - a moment that cameras caught during the game… but failed to get what came afterwards, which you are now seeing, exclusively, right here: