Ohemaa Nyanin and the Valkyries Prove Everyone Wrong

A few days into training camp this spring, Gabby Williams approached Ohemaa Nyanin in the player hallway and, as Nyanin recalls, looked as if “something was actually wrong.” The Valkyries’ general manager quickly ran through “40 different possibilities” in her head—until Williams asked for help getting every practice player’s shoe size so she could buy them all basketball shoes. Nyanin knew Williams was kind, but, she said, “I didn’t know the length of her kindness.” That moment made her realize that “maybe not everything has to be wrong,” a reflex shaped as much by a job built on solving other people’s problems as by the locker room she has spent two years assembling.

Now, that same locker room is one win away from the franchise’s first championship. The Valkyries lead the WNBA Finals 3-2 over the Atlanta Dream and will play Game 6 this afternoon at 12:30 p.m. Eastern at State Farm Arena. A loss would force a decisive Game 7 at Chase Center on Halloween. This improbable run defied expectations—CBS Sports noted that no one predicted Golden State as a title contender entering the season.

The Finals have become a showcase for the defense-first team Nyanin and Nakase built. It started on Oct. 17 at Chase Center, where Williams, scoreless in the first quarter as Golden State trailed 22-14, erupted for 16 points in the second to give her team a 42-39 halftime lead. She then sank all six of her free throws in the final 2:15, sealing a 68-64 win—the franchise’s first in a Finals. Afterward, she told the roaring crowd that the team “always knew we were going to find a way somehow.” Atlanta responded behind Angel Reese, whose 21 points in Game 2 and 30 in a 26-point Game 3 rout made the Valkyries look finished. But Nakase adjusted, moving Kaila Charles and Tiffany Hayes into the starting lineup, and Golden State took Game 4, 67-62, on 17 points from Williams and 18 forced turnovers.

Game 5 was a 64-55 defensive battle, which CBS Sports described as abysmal for shotmaking on both sides. The Valkyries led just 25-22 at halftime before Kiah Stokes hit three three-pointers, finishing with 13 points, eight rebounds, and three blocks. Golden State held the Dream to 29.2 percent shooting, a series-low 14 free throws, and just seven points from Reese. Stokes, 33, was signed by Nyanin on April 13 after logging only 12 playoff minutes the previous year, and she now has 17 blocks in the series—the most ever in a single Finals—including at least three in six straight playoff games, tying Lisa Leslie’s WNBA record. Nyanin’s instinct for key acquisitions also led to the signing of rookie center Aminata Gueye on Sept. 20. As she explained, she “just wanted to make sure that [Nakase] and the coaching staff had everything that they thought that they needed going into the playoffs.”

None of it would have happened without the woman who assembled the roster. Nyanin’s path to running a championship front office is far from typical. Born in Silver Spring, Maryland, to Ghanaian immigrant parents, her father’s job at the World Bank took the family to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Chile, and the Philippines. She attended three high schools in three countries and was never recruited. In fact, she hadn’t touched a basketball until fourth grade, when a stranger in a Maryland grocery store asked her mother if her unusually tall daughter played. That encounter eventually led her to the American University women’s team. Not realizing the program was Division I, she learned her only entry was as a walk-on and replied, “Great—what does that even mean?” Her parents urged her to quit after her junior year to focus on a career, but a new coach brought her back on scholarship for one more season, in which she started all but one of 32 games and set career highs.

Her career began in that same gym, where American University hired her as director of operations for the women’s team. USA Basketball, which practiced there, soon hired her in 2014 as assistant director of the Women’s National Team. In that role, she handled logistics, translated Spanish at international competitions, and traveled to the 2016 Olympics in Rio. After leaving in 2019 to travel the world, she was drawn back into basketball by the New York Liberty, where she became assistant general manager in 2022. She helped build a 2023 roster around Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, and Courtney Vandersloot that reached the Finals and, according to The Ringer, laid the foundation for the team that won the 2024 title.

When the Valkyries began their search for a general manager, owner Joe Lacob had his doubts, according to The Ringer. Nyanin had never played in the WNBA or served as a lead decision-maker for a team. Still, ten members of the organization interviewed her; both she and the other finalist spent time at Lacob’s home with franchise staff. Nyanin convinced him that she knew the players coming up through the game from the time they were 13. “She knows every single player,” Lacob told The Ringer. He added that Nyanin already knew in their first meeting which coach she wanted—Nakase—who was hired that October, five months after Nyanin was introduced on May 6, 2024, as the franchise’s first general manager. She described the job as a chance to build something from nothing, and of Lacob she says, “He’s the type of boss, I will say on record, my favorite boss.”

What Nyanin inherited was more promise than substance: a name, a logo, and Lacob’s vow of a title within five years—but an empty roster. She began by hiring Vanja Černivec, now general manager of the Portland Fire, as vice president of basketball operations, and by bringing in Nakase. On Dec. 6, 2024, she made the franchise’s first 11 expansion draft selections, including Iliana Rupert, Veronica Burton, Kayla Thornton, and Cecilia Zandalasini. The big-name free agents she pursued passed on joining a new franchise, so Nyanin sought players who could offer more than just on-court skills. As she puts it, “We already know that they can play the sport, so it’s what else can you bring to this organization?” and “You need to be able to be an ambassador for this organization and also want to be part of the community.”

The outcome exceeded all expectations. The Valkyries became the first expansion team to make the playoffs in its inaugural season. Burton, who had started just 20 games in her first three seasons, earned the league’s Most Improved Player award and was called the backbone of the team by Nyanin. Thornton, previously stuck behind the Liberty’s stars, became the franchise’s first All-Star. Janelle Salaün, an undrafted rookie from France discovered by Nyanin’s international contacts, made the All-Rookie First Team. Nakase, a first-time head coach, won Coach of the Year.

Ask the people closest to Nyanin what she did differently. Nobody starts with X’s and O’s, which is how Williams, who has known her since USA Basketball and the Liberty, came to say at Finals media availability that what has never wavered is “her attention to detail, the pride she takes in doing things the right way, the pride she takes in getting to know players and making sure that they’re taken care of,” before adding, “When I needed a baby cat sitter, she took care of it. When I need help with my car, whatever, she just makes sure that my only focus is just getting my job done on the court.” Nakase described the same instinct from the coach’s side of the office, saying, “She just lets me coach. I don’t have to worry about so much other than that,” and recalling that Nyanin had texted her that morning to ask whether she had eaten, which led Nakase to conclude, “I feel like she’s the mom of all of us,” and that “leaders are great just because they care about people, not about themselves, and I think Ohemaa thrives in that.” Nyanin, for her part, says the two are “both detail oriented, and we both want to see each other shine,” in a relationship “founded in respect and care.”

That care is what drew Williams to Golden State. She watched the Valkyries from across the league last season while playing for a Seattle team with four All-Stars that exited the playoffs in the first round—just as the Valkyries did. Curious about their formula, she found answers in her free agency meeting: “Nat and O asked me so many questions about myself, about what gets me going, about what works for me, and I was like, ah, they really try to just get the best out of every single player, and that’s the formula.” Nakase remembers a star who never asked about minutes or shots, only wanting a culture that “loved and cared about people and brought out the best.” Burton, the Valkyries’ point guard, hopes that culture endures: “I think culture is something that lasts and something that goes beyond just one year or one season, and to be able to instill that in year one, I think that’s why it was so important.” Nyanin signed Williams to a multi-year deal on April 12, the first All-Star free agent in franchise history, just one day after re-signing Burton to a multi-year contract.

Year two brought new challenges. On April 3, the Portland Fire—run by her former lieutenant Černivec—took Carla Leite in the league’s second expansion draft in as many years, while the Toronto Tempo selected María Conde, both of whom Nyanin had originally acquired in 2024. She described the losses as “a necessary step toward something bigger than any one team.” Soon after, on April 13, the Valkyries drafted LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson eighth overall, only to trade her to Seattle for the No. 16 pick, Marta Suárez, and a 2028 second-round pick—a move that drew gasps on the ESPN broadcast. Nyanin, who told reporters she was exhausted and had little to say, later clarified to ESPN that the deal was made before any pick was selected and “had nothing to do with Flau’jae.” Suárez was waived in early May.

The season that followed brought a franchise-record 32 wins, the No. 2 seed, and the league’s stingiest defense—allowing just 75.1 points per game. The team set a record with nine straight wins in July, powered by the league’s best defense and highest-scoring bench. Williams earned the first All-Star start in franchise history, scoring 18 points with four three-pointers in the July 25 game in Chicago, averaging 14.4 points and 1.6 steals, making the All-Defensive First Team, and finishing second to Reese in Defensive Player of the Year voting. Burton averaged 12.2 points, 5.7 assists, and started all 44 games, making the second team along with Stokes. Salaün averaged 12.7 points and shot 39.2 percent from three, becoming the league’s first unanimous Sixth Player of the Year, setting single-season reserve records for points (509), threes (93), and double-digit games (27). Remarkably, all this came without a single All-WNBA selection on the roster—a testament to a team built on defense and depth rather than star power. The league’s executives took notice, ranking Nyanin third in Executive of the Year voting with eight ballots, behind Minnesota’s Cheryl Reeve (13) and Atlanta’s Dan Padover (11), after she finished second in the same vote a year prior.

Nyanin describes her work in terms that go beyond wins and losses. Before the Finals, she told reporters, “It’s all the little moments that aren’t public,” and emphasized, “Managing the relationships with these athletes is core to our identity.” She refers to her players as athletes rather than simply players, saying, “They belong in the sphere of the sport that they’re playing.” Nyanin credits those around her: the coach who put a reassuring hand on her shoulder at her introductory press conference and said, “She’s not gonna let me fail,” and a village of family and friends who love her as Ohemaa, not just as the Valkyries’ general manager. She has said that being Ghanaian American, a woman, and confident in who she is “has come at a price at some moments in my life”—which makes this afternoon, for an unrecruited walk-on from American University, the biggest game of her professional life, one that could cement her legacy as the architect of a champion.