Now that the Valkyries are champions, is Veronica Burton the point guard to beat?

After the Valkyries took a 3-2 lead in the WNBA Finals, coach Natalie Nakase called Veronica Burton the best point guard in the league.

Given that the Valkyries went on to win the championship, Nakase had earned some bragging rights.

And her point guard absolutely came through, hitting huge shots and steadying her team through a marathon Finals.

Still, giving Burton the crown made me think about the players who might take offense to it, like first-team All-WNBA guards Caitlin Clark and Olivia Miles.

Though their teams lost in the first round of the playoffs, they seem to represent the future of the superstar point guard, one that can lead the team in scoring in addition to setting up their teammates.

Burton is a very different kind of player.

Her numbers aren’t usually gaudy — she averaged nine points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists in the Finals. But she’s always been one of the best defenders in the country. As a junior at Northwestern, she became the only player to hold Clark to fewer than 10 points in her college career.

Plus, her offensive strengths feed directly into what the Valkyries want to do, which is to limit turnovers and create second-chance opportunities.

Burton averaged only 1.5 turnovers during the Finals and is also the best offensive rebounder at her position. That helped the Valkyries win the possession battle, which was a deciding factor in their success.

Heading into the 2027 season, I’ll be watching to see whether this remains a Valkyries specialty or becomes a defining league trend. If winning the possession battle becomes a must, what does it mean for the championship aspirations of a turnover-prone player like Clark?

When Clark entered the league, I bought into the idea that her turnovers fit neatly into the model of her greatness. Sometimes her passes might fly over her teammates’ heads, but that’s the price of playing at such a fast pace.

I remember when Christie Sides, the Fever coach during Clark’s rookie season, said she wanted Clark to average fewer than two turnovers per game, I thought: fat chance. Clark would always turn it over more than that, and that was OK.

I’m not so sure about that anymore — both the notion that she can’t take better care of the ball, and that it will be okay if she doesn’t.

I think the Valkyries and the runner-up Dream, both likely to be juggernauts for years to come, are too good at making teams pay for their turnovers. And I don’t think Clark’s turnovers are totally a product of her pace.

In the Fever’s Game 3 loss to the Aces, for example, most of her giveaways came from ballhandling errors and careless passes in the half court. A player with Clark’s IQ should be able to fix that.

She already sees the game better than most of her peers. It’s part of why the Fever recorded the best offensive numbers in the history of the league this past season. She regularly has stretches of perfection, making the right read on every play.

Then, suddenly, without the defense really changing anything, she starts throwing it away. Those are the mental lapses that need fixing.

So in the wake of the Valkyries' success, my new outlook on Clark is this: to become a championship point guard, I think she will have to maintain her pace while also bringing her turnovers closer to Sides’s old target.

For now though, Burton and Nakase should enjoy their crowns.