GSV GM Nyanin talks about the new drafted Valkyries and the draft process

"Nobody knew that we were going to pick Justė. And that’s a great thing for us. A lot of people made assumptions, which we were fine with. The picks we selected are the picks that we wanted."

Don’t miss the index for the entire 2025 Valkyries Draft series.

The Golden State Valkyries announcement

The Golden State Valkyries completed three selections as part of the 2025 WNBA Draft, which took place in New York City this evening. The team selected Justė Jocytė (Lithuania) with the 5^th overall pick, Shyanne Sellers (Maryland) at 17^th overall, and Kaitlyn Chen (Connecticut) with the 30^thoverall pick.

Jocytė is a 19-year-old, 6-0 guard who plays for Lyon ASVEL Féminin in France’s top division where she averaged 11.9 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.8 assists while shooting 33.9 percent from three this past season. Jocytė made her Lithuanian National Team debut at just 13 years old during the 2019 FIBA U16 Women’s European Championship, leading all players in the tournament with 19.6 points per game while guiding her squad to a silver medal. The Washington D.C. native led Lithuania to gold at the 2022 FIBA U18 Women's European Championship, once again leading all scorers with 19.1 points per game to earn MVP honors. Jocytė has high-level shooting abilities off-the-dribble and in catch-and-shoot situations and excels at creating offensive opportunities for herself and her teammates.

"Justé is one of the best scorers and winners in this draft, and despite being just 19 years old she brings a lot of experience playing at the highest level. She’s very mature offensively, plays with a lot of composure and makes the right plays,” said Valkyries General Manager Ohemaa Nyanin. “We are beyond thrilled to welcome her to the Bay Area."

A 6-2 guard, Sellers joins Golden State from Maryland where she became the first player in program history to record 1,500 points, 500 rebounds, 500 assists. Sellers earned back-to-back All-Big Ten First Team honors to cap off her collegiate career and was recently named an All-American Honorable Mention by the Associated Press after registering 14.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game in 2024-25. The Ohio native got to the line 495 times during her four-year college career and has a career 83.0 shooting percentage from the charity stripe. Sellers brings versatility on both sides of the ball and can guard multiple positions at a high level.

“Sellers is a very well-rounded player both offensively and defensively,” said Nyanin. “In addition, she has high basketball IQ, reads the game well and is a willing passer. Her versatility and infectious positive energy will make our team better. ”

A 2025 NCAA Champion with Connecticut, Chen shot 50.3 percent from the field for the Huskies this past season, including 35.1 percent from three-point range. The 5-foot-9 guard was the 2023 Ivy League Player of the Year for Princeton where she played three seasons and averaged 14.2 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game. Chen is known for her transition scoring who leverages her speed to create scoring opportunities and is a tough defender who fights through screens.

"We're excited to add Kaitlyn to our training camp roster. Her speed, defensive tenacity, and willingness to give 100% impressed us in this process,” said Nyanin. “As a national champion and three-time Ivy League Tournament MVP, she's proven she can elevate her game when it matters most. We look forward to helping her develop and adjust to the pro level while leveraging her strengths in transition and team defense."

Transcript of GM Nyanin’s press conference

Everybody knows who I am. And I just want to say, like, this is probably the first second that I get to, like, breathe and think through what just happened. There’s a lot of work that has gone into today.

I have a lot of people to thank: our scouts Jacob Lloyd and Jill Rankin Schneider have been insane humans, working around the clock. Vanya Chernovets is our VP of Ops. She has been an insane human as well—just somebody who I can ask questions to and get straightforward answers. Our coaching staff, some of whom are on flights coming in, have done a really good job of doing work remotely.

Ownership group—I’m always going to highlight Kirk Lakob. He’s just a human that I didn’t know that I was going to have throughout this process, who has been somebody who has just given me the opportunity to be me, be confident in this role, and make decisions that eventually we’re thrilled about.

So, 5, 17, and 30: Justė Jocytė (YOO-steh yo-TSIH-teh) from Lithuania at 5. You guys know me—pronunciation of names is really important.

She is a phenomenal athlete. She’s 19 years old currently. She was the youngest athlete to play in EuroLeague at 14, and we didn’t take that lightly. So to have her be available at 5 was something that was super important to us.

Shyanne Sellers from the University of Maryland—I’m ecstatic. In our interview process, all of the individuals that had an opportunity to have a conversation with her—bubbly personality, somebody with a really high basketball IQ, can play multiple positions. Again, brings versatility to training camp.

And then Kaitlyn Chen from UConn, coming off winning a national championship, and a hard worker—effortless human, I would say. And we’re just thrilled. There were a lot of high fives, a lot of hugs, a lot of smiles. I think tomorrow when I wake up, I will feel all the feels. But right now, the overwhelming feeling is being grateful to have the opportunity to make the first draft picks in Valkyries history.

Today, we’ve been talking about it a lot. So this is the beginning. This is the end of the beginning, if that makes sense. And training camp is another opportunity to test out all the different theories that Coach Natalie Nakase and I have talked about behind closed doors with Mr. Joe.

Q: Just with Justė, do you expect her to come over this year? Or what’s the timeline for her joining this team?

A: Yeah, the timeline’s in flux, as all my answers have been. We can’t wait to have a conversation with her tomorrow. We had a quick 30-second conversation—myself, Vanya, Mr. Joe, and Natalie were on FaceTime with her. She had her family and friends all around her, which was really cool. And tomorrow’s a day where we get to talk about what it looks like for this training camp and training camps beyond.

Q: Usually when you go that high—number five overall—usually that means you have the potential to be an impact player. So I’m just curious, what jumped out to you about Justė, where you were like, this one is going to work out for the long haul for us?

A: I think a lot of things jumped out. What she’s been able to do at such a young age, what she’s been able to do with her national team in Lithuania—they will play in EuroBasket this year. And I would just say who she is: mature beyond her years, her basketball IQ, her physical ability within the game at such a young age. Right now, the sky is the limit for her.

Q: You talked about Justė’s professional acumen playing on a team. How much does that play a role in just having someone walk in the door as a professional and doing that at such a young age?

A: Great question. I think for us, we want to be competitive in year one. And so someone who is going to come in and not be shy about the moment—someone who has seen the bright lights in Europe—I think is very important. I think the lights at Chase Center are going to be super bright, and in all the other arenas that we play in. And so being competitive at such a young age and playing with other athletes within the WNBA ecosystem currently—or against them, more specifically—it’s amazing.

Q: I know you’ve probably been asked this before, but you guys have nine players that are internationally born. What is the thinking behind that philosophy, this structure for this team? Is that something that you see that you could exploit—just all the talent that’s international?

A: Yeah, I mean, I think I’m going to answer the question the same way I’ve answered it. Regardless of where an athlete is born, we’re looking at a lot of things, right? We’re looking at their competitive spirit. We’re looking if they would fit in Coach Natalie’s philosophy currently. We’re looking at the other athletes in the league and how we can kind of pair up against them, so to speak.

We aren’t focusing on where they’re from. I think something that we take into consideration is the level of talent they are currently playing against and how that will translate into the WNBA.

A lot of the mock drafts were taking into consideration things that we haven’t said we are taking into consideration. And so I don’t necessarily want to be paired up to what others thought, if that makes sense. We’re super excited about the athletes that we got. And there was a lot of work that went on behind the scenes. I’m very thankful for the team I work with because nobody knew that we were going to pick Justė. And that’s a great thing for us. A lot of people made assumptions, which we were fine with. I’m happy to go on record right now to say that the picks we selected are the picks that we wanted.

Q: As you go into training camp, having gone so guard-heavy in the draft, what kind of holes or other places do you want to fill out your roster a little bit more?

A: I would say training camp will help us define that. I think the goal for training camp is to bring competitive athletes and make no assumptions that athletes are going to make our team, and have the most competitive training camp to then really merit who wears our jersey on May 16th.

Q: Are you all building a model for the two expansion teams that are coming up behind you in terms of how to structure a new team in this league? Or is this model that you’ve chosen specific to your frame of reference, or Vanya’s frame of reference?

A: I would say it remains to be seen after this first season if what we did—in the expansion draft, free agency, and the collegiate draft more specifically—is the runway for other expansion teams. We feel very confident that it’s our way, and I think there are other things to be taken into consideration for next season. There are two teams coming in, rather than one. Free agency is going to look completely different. So I am curious to see how the other teams do it, to be quite honest.

And I would say that we’re not trying to pave the way for other teams to do it—because then they might do it better than us, if that makes sense. But we are trying to do it the way that makes us feel good about what we’re doing on a daily basis.

Q: When you were scouting these three players, what stood out to you specifically about how competitive they were on the floor?

A: I think the three of them didn’t shy away from their big-time matchups, right? If you watch Justė and the types of games she’s playing overseas, you’ll see that. Shyanne Sellers—double overtime against Alabama at home, right? That’s a big stage. Kaitlyn Chen coming from Princeton, using her last year of eligibility to go win a championship at UConn—that kind of speaks for itself.

Q: 19 years old is very young, but there have been other international players who came in at that age—Lauren Jackson and Emma Meesseman, most notably. Did seeing others succeed at that age give you confidence?

A: Yeah, I mean, I think there are others—Han Xu, Marine Johannès. There are other athletes who have come at a young age and been successful. I would say we looked at every athlete individually and based our decision on their individual story—not necessarily on their predecessors—just because the game has changed since Lauren Jackson was in the league. Emma is still an elite WNBA talent, right?

We made sure to measure each athlete for what they could do right now within our team, versus historical data.

Q: What about her game reminds you of other players?

A: I would say Justė is Justė. And we want to make sure each of the athletes feels confident to come and tell their own story. In watching other athletes get selected—or kind of the conversations that have been happening—a lot of questions are around what this athlete could be based on what is currently happening within the W or NBA. And we want each of the athletes to make their own name with us at this stage.

Q: Were you surprised Shyanne was available at 17? What about her versatility excites you?

A: I can say yes—we were surprised that Shyanne was available at 17. We were super excited about it, to be quite honest. There was some chatter in the room as the picks were being called off, and she was still on our board, so to speak. Her versatility excites us because it gives us another opportunity to slide her into one position or the other. It gives our coaching staff the opportunity to really define the type of athlete they’re looking at for each of the different positions.

Q: How meaningful is it to you personally that these players’ dreams have come true?

A: Thank you for that question. It’s super emotional for me to be able to give an athlete an opportunity to live out their dream at this level. The best league in the world—it’s indescribable. To see the tears, to see the impact that it’s going to have on their families, on their countries, on the universities they just came from.

To see Kaitlyn—the reason why I came down so late is we wanted to see Kaitlyn’s reaction on TV. Her whole team was so excited. Again, she was there to support Paige, and she gets selected. And now she gets the opportunity to come and fight for a spot on a new team, halfway across the world, but from UConn. And this is why I do the job that I do—for days like this. You’ve impacted a human that you probably didn’t know a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago—and now they get to instantly be a part of your journey and your story.