Magnesium, music and a mindset trick the Valkyries forward swears by before every game.
Gabby Williams turns 30 this September, the same year the WNBA celebrates its own 30th anniversary. The Golden State Valkyries forward grew up in Nevada, where catching a game on television was rare and a ticket in the stands felt like a small miracle. Her first glimpse of the league in person came at age 12, watching the Sacramento Monarchs face the Los Angeles Sparks, a moment she still credits with shaping her ambition to play professionally.
A career stretched across continents
Williams has spent eight years turning that early dream into a demanding, borderless career. She currently suits up for a club in the Turkish Super League and competes in EuroLeague Women, while also representing France, her mother’s home country, at the last two Olympic Games. She has watched the WNBA’s visibility, salaries and sponsorship opportunities expand dramatically since she entered the league, and she says she feels fortunate to have matured alongside it rather than simply inheriting a league that had already arrived.
The Pregame checklist that keeps her grounded
Ahead of the 2026 All-Star Game, Williams walked through the routine she leans on before nearly every tip off. Sleep sits at the top of her list. She takes a magnesium supplement recommended by her team’s medical staff to relax her muscles, follows that with roughly an hour in compression recovery gear and often finishes with an Epsom salt soak. A disrupted night of sleep, she says, can throw off her entire day.
Fueling the body without overthinking it
Nutrition follows a similarly deliberate pattern. Williams keeps breakfast light, usually a juice and a protein bar, then eats a heartier plant based meal after shootaround, often sweet potato with chickpeas or avocado with beans. She avoids meat entirely and drinks water throughout the day. On nights with later tip offs, she skips morning coffee so she can fit in a nap, saving her caffeine, mixed with creatine, for the afternoon.
Music, wine and a little bit of superstition
Williams insists she does not lean on lucky charms, though her listening habits drift toward the superstitious. Lately she has had Steve Lacy’s new album Oh Yeah on repeat, along with a recently released live recording of Justin Bieber’s Coachella set. When a particular song lines up with a strong performance, she keeps it in rotation, a habit she jokingly admits might count as superstition after all.
Quiet moments before tip off
Away from her phone, Williams reads and journals in the locker room to steady her mind, sometimes writing down what she is grateful for and other times scribbling out negative thoughts before crumpling the page and tossing it away. In the final minutes before a game, she visualizes the opening play unfolding exactly as her coaches designed it, then pictures her own first defensive stop. She stops there on purpose, using that narrow focus to stay calm and settle into her flow rather than letting her mind race further ahead.
For Williams, none of this reads as excessive. It is simply the upkeep required to compete at the top of a league she has watched grow from folding chairs and spotty broadcasts into sold out arenas and national attention, all while turning 30 right alongside it.
