Today on WNBA Tuesday, we’re going to analyze the season for Golden State Valkyries guard Veronica Burton, through the lens of sabermetric value. We have followed the team’s entire inaugural season in the league, via our season-ticket purchase and the usual mathematical data, and believe us when we say this team would be lost without Burton: she is the only player right now with more than 2.0 Win Shares.

In fact, Burton’s 6.0 WS mark is three times the amount of the next-best player on the roster, Temi Fagbenle. Let that sink in for a moment: Golden State has one player is standing out this season, and while she’s also the only player to play in all 39 regular-season games for the team (so far), Burton has done a tremendous amount of positive with that playing time and usage rate. She has to be in the WNBA MVP talk.

That may seem ridiculous, but she is seventh overall in the league for Win Shares, and without much help from the rest of the always-in-flux roster, the Valkyries are on the verge of clinching a postseason berth as an expansion team. We think Head Coach Natalie Nakase is a shoo-in winner for Coach of the Year voting, but Burton will be earning well-deserved MVP votes on her way (please) to claiming Most Improved Player.

This is what we wrote about Burton last December after the expansion draft: we pegged her as a starter in the backcourt but only as a maybe. By mid June, we called her a “revelation” as the only consistent and reliable player on the roster. In early July, we pointed out Burton was the offensive leader of the team, despite not being a traditionally high scorer. And in mid August, we valued her higher than Caitlin Clark.

And that’s no joke, for if Clark’s 3.0 WS in 40 games last year made her an MVP candidate in stupid people’s minds, well … then Burton—with 6.0 WS in 39 games this year—is a bona fide MVP candidate in any intelligent person’s mind this year … period. It will a joke if she does not claim some hardware after the year is complete. She put up 4.2 WS combined in her first three WNBA seasons, and now she is a certified rock star.

Kudos to the Golden State front office for identifying her abilities in the expansion draft and securing her rights—and kudos to the Valkyries coaching staff for handing the reins of the team to her: Burton leads the team in Offensive Win Shares (4.2) and Defensive Win Shares (1.9). Her WS per Minute Played mark has increased every season in the league now from .078 as a rookie in 2022 to .253 in her fourth season now.

When we realize that both Dallas (2022-2023) and Connecticut (2024) didn’t realize what they had on their hands, it also goes to show that the Golden State franchise knows what it is doing: the Wings and the Sun are at the bottom of the standings this year. Imagine how much better they’d be with Burton running their show on the court. Remember, one team’s trash is another team’s treasure, and in this case, even more so.