Golden State Valkyries guard Veronica Burton had missed every field goal she attempted in Game 2 against the Las Vegas Aces when she took the three-pointer that won it. She had a cold, and she did not hear the building go up. “My ears have been clogged probably for a week now, so I couldn’t hear it,” she said. “For me, it was just like a sigh of relief because, gosh, I finally did something on this floor.”
That was not the only night she played sick. In the first round against the Dallas Wings, she finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds with the same cold.
Golden State is in its second season. The first one, in 2025, made it the first WNBA expansion team to reach the playoffs in its debut year, and the second has taken it further than that. “It says a lot about what a vision can do and what a vision can be,” Burton said.
Asked what the run has taught her, she did not talk about the roster. “I think the silliest thing that we all do, that we do as humans, is we put limitations on ourselves,” she said. The lesson she left it on was shorter: “don’t let your own limitations stop you from what’s possible.”
It is a thing athletes say. It lands differently from a guard who had missed every shot she took that night, with a head cold, and shot it again anyway.
