As the 2025 WNBA regular season reaches its crescendo, the debate over awards is sure to pick up.
Many a WNBA pundit will likely mention names such as Napheesa Collier, A’ja Wilson, Allisha Gray and Alyssa Thomas for MVP. Those same pundits may also mention Veronica Burton and Naz Hillmon for Most Improved Player. There will likely also be plenty of conversation as to who should be this year’s Sixth Woman of the Year and Executive of the Year.
Then – there is Coach of the Year and that is an award that always produces plenty of spirited banter.
Earlier in the season, it appeared that Washington Mystics coach Sydney Johnson would have been a candidate for Coach of the Year. But when Washington traded Brittney Sykes to the Seattle Storm at the trade deadline, that was essentially the Mystics punting on the 2025 season in anticipation of having a healthy Georgia Amoore for 2026.
It appears that two names remain for Coach of the Year – Karl Smesko, Atlanta Dream coach and Natalie Nakase, Golden State Valkyries coach.
There has been plenty of conversation about Smesko for Coach of the Year given what he has done in his first season at the helm for the Dream. After all, Atlanta is 22-12 as of this writing, would be the second seed in the WNBA playoffs and already has a win over Cheryl Reeve’s top-seeded Minnesota Lynx.
Smesko’s case was enhanced recently when his Dream defeated Nakase’s Valkyries – at the Chase Center – by a final score of 79-63. Four from Atlanta finished in double-digits for points including Gray, Hillmon, Rhyne Howard, Brionna Jones and Te-Hina Paopao.
The difference though, between the Dream and Valkyries is that Atlanta was built to contend.
Let us remember that Dan Padover is the same general manager that played such a large role in building the Las Vegas Aces into the juggernaut it evolved into. Padover knows how to build championship teams and adding BG and Jones in free agency plus drafting Paopao to a team that already had Howard and Gray is a surefire way to convert the Dream from likely playoff participants to potential championship contenders.
Nakase was given an expansion team to work with.
Nakase was one of two branches plucked from Becky Hammon’s championship pedigree coaching tree in Las Vegas. Tyler Marsh was the other and he has not had the same level of success with the Chicago Sky that Nakase has had in the Bay Area.
She, along with general manager Ohemaa Nyanin, had to build a team from scratch. And as questionable as some of its preseason moves were, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of the Bay Area who thought the Valkyries would be much of anything in 2025. We at Beyond The W even felt the Valkyries would look like a typical expansion team.
Instead, Golden State has already set a record for most victories by an expansion team. If the playoffs were to begin today, the Valkyries would be the seventh seed. Golden State is two games in the loss column ahead of the Seattle Storm, Los Angeles Sparks and Washington Mystics – all of which have 18 losses.
Names such as Kayla Thornton, Veronica Burton, Tiffany Hayes, Janelle Salaün, Temi Fágbénlé and Cecilia Zandalasini have been important reasons for why the Valkyries have quickly shed the “expansion” label and are playing like a full-fledged franchise.
That on-court success has translated to other areas of success for the Valkyries as well. The team now enjoys a franchise valuation of $500 million and sell-out crowds are becoming a regularity at Balhalla.
And, of course, we must mention Golden State’s new mascot that is giving Ellie a run for her money.
There are established WNBA franchises – such as the Sky, Dallas Wings and Connecticut Sun that wish they could be where the Valkyries are as an expansion franchise. That is what happens when owners such as Joe Lacob and Peter Guber invest the money and time necessary to build a winner.
That is not to take away from anything that Smesko has done in Atlanta. He has done a great job with the Dream and has the team in position to compete for a championship this season. But when the Valkyries mentioned the beginning of its “ascent,” who would have envisioned it would be this meteoric?
