Veronica Burton has found a home in the Bay Area.
She is one of the best players on the Golden State Valkyries and has truly started to shed the “underrated” label.
The 2025 WNBA Most Improved Player, Burton received one fifth-place MVP vote last year and one fourth-place vote this year. She was in the conversation for an All-Star bid this year, and likely would have been selected last year had the game taken place at the end of the season instead of midway through. The defense she was known for at Northwestern
has been hailed as elite in the W, with her earning an All-Defensive Second Team honor in 2025 and finishing fifth in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2026.
Her offensive game came alive during her final two collegiate seasons and has been unleashed at times in the W.
She is the second-highest-paid player on the Valkyries, with a nearly-max-level salary of $925,000. There is no question that she deserves that contract, with the consensus view being that she is a foundational piece of a franchise that finished second in the standings this year.
For a player who was waived by the Dallas Wings prior to the 2024 season, her rise to stardom was like a fairy tale; seemingly everything went in her favor after she joined Golden State.
But, it just got even better.
Based on her performances this past week, in addition to calling her a star, you can now call her a clutch playoff performer.
Burton’s clutch contributions helped lead the Valkyries to the Finals
In Game 2 of Golden State’s semifinal series against the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, Burton made a 3 that gave the Valkyries a 79-76 lead with 41.5 seconds remaining.
She then, under pressure, made 2-of-2 free throws, giving Golden State the 83-80 lead with 6.4 seconds to go, forcing the Aces’ Jackie Young to intentionally miss a free throw at 5.9 seconds, which led to an unsuccessful attempt by Chelsea Gray to tie the game as the clock expired.
In the series-clinching Game 3 win, Burton added another clutch performance, scoring six points in the final 4:01 of the fourth quarter to help the Valks force overtime. Four of those points came in an 8-0 Golden State run that gave them a 71-69 lead with 1:12 to go. She made a difficult layup at 1:12 that the Valks needed to stay alive in the contest, as the score would eventually end up tied at 71 at the end of regulation.
This level of clutchness over two-straight semifinal games is nothing to sneeze at.
It has clearly marked the beginning of what could be a great playoff legacy for the 26-year-old.
Burton overcame adversity to earn her spot in the WNBA
Burton was drafted by the Wings at No. 7 overall in the 2022 WNBA Draft.
After averaging 8.6 and 11.6 points per game as a Wildcat freshman and sophomore, respectively, she had averaged 16.2 points per game as a junior and 17.8 points per game as a senior. She had a 3-point shot, and the speed and toughness to drive to the basket through contact. She also could distribute at a high level (6.4 assists per game as a senior), and was of course the “Backcourt Burglar,” having led the nation in steals per game her final two years.
Because of all of her collegiate accomplishments, Dallas had high hopes for her, but it didn’t pan out.
Playing with current Valkyrie teammate Kayla Thornton, she saw action in 15.6 minutes per game across 36 games in 2022, averaging 2.6 points per game. In the playoffs, we got a sneak preview of the key contributor she would become, as she started in all three games, playing 28 minutes per contest with 6.3 points per game, 3.3 assists per game and two steals per game. But the following season, she averaged fewer minutes and points in both the regular season (13.9 and 2.4, respectively) and the postseason (11 and 1.8, respectively).
Then came the homecoming: The Newton, MA native signed with the Connecticut Sun on June 5, 2024 (nine games into their season). Burton was again a non-factor in the regular season, but went from 12.7 to 19.3 minutes per game in the postseason. If you watched the playoffs that year, you probably noticed her contributing to the Sun’s run, which went all the way to Game 5 of the semis.
The Valkyries recognized her talent, taking her from the Sun in the 2025 expansion draft, and the rest is history.
She was second on Golden State in minutes per game in 2025 and first in 2026, while averaging double-digit points both years. She was third in the W in assists per game (six) in 2025 and ninth in 2026 with 5.7 per contest. In between, she led Unrivaled with 2.1 steals per contest.
Burton is the perfect point guard for the most successful expansion team ever
After watching her play at Northwestern, I truly believed Burton had the potential to become the great WNBA player she has become.
The story here isn’t just her on-court success, though.
Golden State wouldn’t have taken her in the expansion draft if she didn’t fit in with the culture they were trying to create. They’ve built their organization around players who are willing to work hard and sacrifice. Burton exudes the types of positive vibes that are right at home in Ballhalla.
Even away from Ballhalla, in Las Vegas after Game 3, you could hear the G-S-V chants in the background of the postgame on-court interview with Burton, as she praised her teammates’ composure, belief and trust in each other.
Burton’s sister, Kayla, is one of her biggest supporters, and has a platform to share her support as a broadcaster for NBC Sports Boston.
Kayla is quick to credit Veronica’s brief stop back home in New England with the Sun for getting her back in the league and serving as a stepping stone.
Burton will always be a sports legend to those in the Boston area who followed her career long before the WNBA. Now, she’s helping write history in another great sports city: San Francisco.
The Valkyries are in the Finals in their second year of existence and have a mythic aura surrounding them that makes them one of the best sports stories I’ve ever come across. Burton is a huge part of that.
She has gone from MIP to Unrivaled champion to WNBA semifinal hero.
While she always had the potential, all of it seemed hard to imagine back when she was waived in May of 2024.
The key has been the faith that Ballhalla has had in her, and what she has, in turn, given back to now Finals-bound Ballhalla.
