With 3:23 left in the first quarter of Game 1 of the WNBA playoffs against Las Vegas, Aminata Gueye checked into the game for the Valkyries.
Being matched up against WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, Gueye didn’t hesitate. It appeared she might just be head coach Natalie Nakase’s curveball in that matchup; but then she went on to play in each of the next two games of the series, giving Golden State a true center in its second unit for the first time all season.
“I knew I signed super late,” Gueye told The IX Sports. “I was not thinking of playing [a lot] or being in the finals, so it’s just kind of crazy right now.”
Gueye had never played in a WNBA game before Sept. 22, when she played just over three minutes in Golden State’s overtime loss at Portland.
That was one thing; Golden State did need size and didn’t have many options behind Kiah Stokes. But entering in the first quarter of a semifinal Game 1 against the defending champions?
Even she was a bit surprised.
“Three weeks ago, I couldn’t even imagine being in the WNBA,” Gueye said. “Now I’m here playing in the finals, it’s incredible.”
Gueye has done the exact thing Nakase needs to see to bring a player into the Valkyries rotation, showing that she was picking up on everything in practice. Gueye joined the Valkyries less than a month ago on Sept. 20, but quickly appeared to be understanding the play calls and defensive switches in practice. That, and a nudge from teammate Gabby Williams, allowed Nakase to give her a shot.
“She’s fearless. Obviously, I’ve known her for a while now and Coach Nat was asking me about her and I was like, ‘Throw her in. That girl is ready,’” Williams said after Game 1 against Las Vegas. “She’s physical. She works really, really hard. And that’s exactly what our identity is.”
It’s not like Gueye was an unknown; she had 4.7 minutes per game with the silver-medal winning French national team at the World Cup in Berlin. Gueye had barely had any discussions with WNBA teams before she heard from the Valkyries after the World Cup.
“I knew it was about to be playoff time, so I thought it would be too late [to join a team],” she said. “Of course I wanted to be a WNBA player, but I was thinking about getting ready for next summer. I feel so lucky [the Valkyries] reached out to me.”
But she wasn’t WNBA tested, and certainly not WNBA playoff tested.
“As we were looking at the totality of the team, I knew that we just needed something different,” Valkyries general manager Ohemaa Nyanin said. “I did not know that she would play. I just wanted to make sure that Coach Natalie and the coaching staff had everything that they thought that they needed going into the playoffs, and it’s been a pleasant surprise.”
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Gueye has played 10.8 minutes per game in the postseason, more than Laeticia Amihere and Juste Jocyte, who have been with the team all season. She is shooting 37.5% with 3.3 points and 2.5 rebounds per contest.
But the stat sheet isn’t as important as the overall depth that Gueye gives the Valkyries. With her as a viable center for more than 10 minutes per game, Kiah Stokes can get a breather. Against Atlanta where Stokes is going to take on a ton along the glass, that makes Gueye more essential.
During the last WNBA offseason, Gueye played alongside former Valkyrie Carla Leite for Spanish club Casademont Zaragoza, where she averaged 10.3 points and 6.2 rebounds in 18 minutes per contest.
“She’s been on a list of people that we were looking at, and so, the process went quick, fast, in a hurry, but also with a lot of intention, just to make sure that whoever we brought in wouldn’t alter negatively the type of chemistry that we have on the team right now,” Nyanin said. “You would have thought that she’s been here all year because of how close she is with genuinely almost everybody on the team, and that’s really special. So it’s a huge tribute to her, her openness to wanting to learn very quickly.”
Nakase also said she’s been keeping an eye on Gueye going back to before the World Cup.
“She’s a different big,” Nakase told The IX Sports. “We just needed a body that could bang and defend and not get buried, and so we knew of Ami and in the first practice she was setting hard screens and just running people over, and we’re like, bingo.”
Gueye might get even more time against a strong rebounding squad like Atlanta.
It might not have been expected, but she feels ready for the moment.
“I feel so comfortable,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been able to fit in.”
