Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images Luke Randall Sat, October 24, 2026 at 11:05 AM UTC · 2 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase has cleared the air on why her squad remains off the floor during the national anthem.
The WNBA Finals walked straight into a political firestorm after both the Golden State Valkyries and Atlanta Dream stayed in their locker rooms during the national anthem. Critics jumped on the empty court almost immediately, ripping into both squads for showing disrespect.
The uproar went into overdrive when Donald Trump took to social media, using the moment to unleash on the league before setting his sights on LeBron James. And it didn't stop there, as he also took a shot at the WNBA, claiming they're destroying their reputation.
When pressed on why her the Valkyries stays tucked away during the anthem , Natalie Nakase shrugged off the drama.
She made it clear there's no hidden message behind it, it's just how they've handled pre-game from day one, and right now, the only thing on their radar is fixing mistakes and winning Game 4.
The interviewer asked: "Since the inception of your franchise, the team has not been on the floor during the US National Anthem. Yeah. And that's continued through the finals. Yeah. Can you explain whose decision that is and why the team does that?"
Nakase responded: "That's just kind of, we're two years in, that's been part of our pregame. So that's kind of been our focus is that we do our pregame the way we decided to do it. And then now again, like I just mentioned to him, we are locked in focused on the details, learning from our losses, and focused on how we can get better and make sure we win game four."
Still, nobody wants to say the quiet part out loud. Passing it off as just a "routine" smells like a dodge, especially when even WNBA PR staff were spotted sitting down during the song on press row.
As we've seen with the transgender debate, the WNBA is becoming a whole lot more political.
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Source: Sports
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