Purple Reign: The Finals in Golden State Has a Nice Ring to It

Many of the most defining moments of the 2026 WNBA postseason have involved clutch plays from Gabby Williams. The co-captain of the Golden State Valkyries has played out of her mind and into the forefront of pro sports during one of the busiest times of the sporting calendar. This has prompted the basketball world to give the eight-year veteran her long-overdue flowers amid a string of career highs and breakout performances. 

Williams maintained the fifth-highest scoring average and third-highest player efficiency rating throughout the playoffs en route to her team sweeping the reigning two-time WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces in the semifinals matchup. 

Prior to her stellar showing at the June 2026 WNBA All-Star game, Williams’ persistent smile and tattooed profile were perhaps one of San Francisco’s best-kept secrets, a city dominated by men’s teams with multiple championships in professional football, baseball and basketball since the late 1980s. But in the course of a record-breaking postseason run with Golden State, Williams and her teammates captured the Bay Area’s attention with celebrity supporters at home games, ranging from future NBA Hall of Famers like Steph Curry and Draymond Green to iconic natives E-40 and George Lucas.

On October 16, one week after Williams helped the Valkyries clinch its first-ever trip to the WNBA Finals, the ladies of “Ballhalla” surprised their star forward with an on-camera announcement that she had been named to the WNBA All-Defensive First Team. A day later, after the Valkyries defeated the Atlanta Dream in game one of the WNBA Finals, the team’s Head Coach, Natalie Nakase, stated that Williams is one of the best players on the planet. 

The opening game of the WNBA Finals was one of the most watched games in the league’s postseason history, and Williams did not disappoint. She is becoming a household name with recognition that extends far beyond the court. For Williams, a spotlight on the game’s biggest stage has brought newfound attention to the extensive tattoo collection that decorates her 5-foot-11 frame and the backstory that made her one of the best forwards in the WNBA.

Hoop Dreams and Tattoos

Growing up in western Nevada during the 2000s, Williams had hoop dreams of someday running up and down the hardwood floor like two of her biggest inspirations: 2001 NBA MVP Allen Iverson and four-time WNBA Champion Seimone Augustus. Watching this pair of Hall of Famers donning noticeable body art gave her what you might call “Inked Dreams.” In a clever, anti-establishment move that would have made the great Iverson proud, Williams procured her first tattoo, on her shoulder, as a freshman in high school during 2010-11.

Eight years and two National Championships later, the 2018 Cheryl Miller Award winner has already joined her idols in the record books of professional basketball lore — in some capacities. In contrast to their ink, many of the tattoos in Williams’ growing collection are steeped in anime, classic fresco paintings, and her mother’s heritage in France, where Williams is a dual citizen.

She soon crossed paths with Lil B, the renowned tattoo artist from Bordeaux, France, who was honing his tebori shading skills. “Back when I became pro, I was always watching tattoo time lapses on all these Pinterest and Instagram pages, just looking at tattoos. I came across Lil B and just became a huge fan of his and thought that he was (creating) something that no one else in the world could do,” Williams shared with Inked Magazine. “Lil B is pretty famous for doing the La Pietà tattoo. So, when I saw it on his Instagram, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s my Michelangelo brain and his world colliding,’ so he was the perfect one to do it.”

After six days of sessions, Williams had an anime-themed sleeve with characters from “Attack on Titan,” “Spirited Away,” and the award-winning manga “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.” The piece was finished in time for Williams’ Olympic run with the French Women’s National Basketball Team in 2021.

In the years that followed, the anime-inspired work of Anastasia Blackwood, another European-based tattoo artist, found its way onto Williams’ skin. “She’s Russian, but she was in Hungary, and I was playing (basketball during the WNBA off-season) in a town called Sopron. I came across her page, and I thought it was amazing,” Williams recalled. “She was only an hour drive away, so I hit her up, and she did my left arm and my thigh.”

The two portraits inked on Williams by Blackwood depict Captain Levi Ackerman and Eren Yeager, a pair of fictional characters from “Attack on Titan,” Williams’ favorite anime.

Bringing a Defensive Aura

As the leading scorer and indispensable help defender for the Valkyries, Williams is an extension of her head coach, Natalie Nakase, who rose through the ranks of women’s basketball with a defensive philosophy that thrives on the instincts of its most disruptive stoppers on the perimeter. This postseason, Williams and the 2025 Coach of the Year have been a part of something extra special at the Chase Center, where they have allowed the fewest fastbreak points per game.

Williams’ tattooed hands and fingers — all of which have ink dedicated to musicians like Prince, Freddie Mercury, and her mom’s favorite group AC/DC — helped steer her team beyond the fourth-best odds of winning the WNBA Championship trophy to home court advantage in the Finals. Her teammates are already chiming in about what her next tattoo should be.

“My teammates want a tattoo on me,” Williams said. “I don’t have much room left. I might do another anime piece on my back. I’m not sure of what yet. I am not someone who comes in (to a tattoo session) with my own ideas. I sit there, I hire (the tattoo artists), and I am paying them to do what they do best.”

In an era of WNBA basketball that is by far the most watched, most lucrative, most forward-thinking, and most tattooed, she is now one of the most recognizable faces and clutch performers in the game. For Williams, earning a place in the WNBA Championship record books could be the most satisfying realization of her professional career.

Throughout the long part of October, Golden State has been locked in a grueling and highly physical Finals matchup with the Atlanta Dream, who, like the Valkyries, are the only other team in the league with three WNBA All-Defensive players. The 2026 WNBA Finals will come to a climactic ending on Halloween when Williams and her Valkyries co-stars, starting point guard Veronica Burton and starting center Kiah Stokes, host the league’s first-ever game seven at home.

Time will soon tell if a 2026 WNBA Championship banner will hang in the rafters next July, when the Valkyries host the 2027 All-Star Game in San Francisco. Thus, as the chase for Williams’ first championship ring in “The W” wears on, so does the likelihood that she will someday have a legacy that leaves a lasting imprint on the next generation of ballers seeking to blaze new trails in the win column and as members of the tattoo community.