SAN FRANCISCO — The box score says Veronica Burton had a quiet month. Her shooting percentages have dipped. Her scoring average has slipped. On paper, it looks like a step back for last season’s Most Improved Player award winner.
Then she went out and posted a plus-minus of +25 in a 76-67 win over the New York Liberty. And anyone who watched knew the real story.
Burton finished with a team-high eight assists. She hounded Sabrina Ionescu and made life miserable for every Liberty ballhandler who came near her. She directed traffic on offense, found the open shooter, and basically served as the engine for everything Golden State did well. The points per game stat? It lied again.
“Vee is definitely our leader, our floor general,” Valkyries guard Kaila Charles said after the game. “We ask her to do a lot. She plays point guard, runs the offense, but then she’s also guarding the best players on the other team. That’s not easy. The fact that she has this composure, she can take the weight and hold her head high and do a great job. It’s a very special thing to see and be a part of.”
There’s been chatter about whether Burton’s stamina is running thin, whether the scoring drop-off signals something bigger. But head coach Natalie Nakase sees it differently. She sees a player who doesn’t get days off from responsibility, and who keeps asking for more.
What Nakase asks of her captain
Nakase doesn’t sugarcoat what she needs from Burton. She told her straight up: there are no off days when you’re the one running this team. If teammates aren’t listening, you figure out how to make them listen. If the game gets hard, you play through it.
“You have to understand what ‘hard’ is, and you have to be able to play through ‘hard,’” Nakase recalled. “I said to her, ‘We need you to do that for us to continue to move in the right direction.’ It’s her understanding she has to take on more of the challenge. If they’re not listening, you better figure out how to get your teammates to listen. That’s why she’s built for it.”
Burton has started showing some wear. Shots that usually fall are coming up short. Her floaters lack their normal lift. The Valkyries have been trying to manage her minutes by leaning on backup Kaitlyn Chen, who has played well in extended run. But Burton keeps telling her coach she’s fine.
“I feel great,” Burton said. “I get to play basketball, so it’s fun. I enjoy it.”
She deflected credit to the team’s depth and her preparation, which sounds like exactly what you’d expect from a floor general who treats passing the ball and passing the credit as the same thing.
“It’s our entire team. Our coaching staff and performance staff have prepared me to play a lot of minutes. But also I don’t have to. We’re playing really well as a whole team and we trust whoever’s out there. By the grace of God I’m healthy and I pray for health, so I’m just trying to take care of my body as best I can.”
The cheers she gets during starting lineup introductions at Chase Center are the loudest of any Valkyrie. The fans see it. The coaches see it. The numbers might not always show it, but the win column does.
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