Veronica Burton bounced back from adversity and became the WNBA’s Most Improved Player. By Lia Assimakopoulos
Veronica Burton ’22 has experienced the highs and lows of women’s pro basketball.
Drafted No. 7 overall by the WNBA’s Dallas Wings in 2022, Burton quickly carved out a role as a rotation player, providing steady minutes off the bench as a defense-first guard.
Two years later, that footing vanished.
In May 2024 — just days before the start of her third WNBA season — Dallas cut her.
“It was definitely a gut check,” she says. “Whenever you get drafted, nothing’s guaranteed. Everyone’s replaceable.”
Burton returned home to Newton, Mass. The former first-round pick spent her days putting up shots at her local YMCA, watching the pickleball players while she waited for an open court.
“It was humbling,” she confides. With only 144 roster spots in the league at the time, Burton was not guaranteed another opportunity.
Her father, Steve Burton ’85, ’88 MS, remembers watching his daughter search for clarity during those difficult weeks back home. One day, he walked into their home office to find her reading the Bible.
“My faith is a big reason why I’m here and why I play,” she says. “I knew at some point I would get another chance. It was just a matter of what that chance would look like and what I would make of it.”
She did get another chance. A month after being waived by the Wings, she landed with the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun for the remainder of the season.
Fast forward to December 2024. The Golden State Valkyries — then the league’s newest franchise — selected Burton in the expansion draft, seeing something in her that other teams had yet to unlock.
Burton entered the 2025 season eager to impress her new team. Instead, in her first Valkyries start, she went scoreless from the field and made just two free throws. She also felt she had committed unforced errors that led to a handful of turnovers.
As Burton walked to the locker room after the game, disappointment lingered. She understood how quickly opportunities disappear in the WNBA — she’d lived it.
“I was really hard on myself,” Burton admits.
Then came a conversation with first-year head coach Natalie Nakase that changed everything.
Veronica Burton, left, defends Chelsea Gray during an Unrivaled game in Miami in February. Burton’s team, the Mist, won the three-on-three league’s 2026 championship. Credit: Shane Collins
“She was like, ‘Let’s watch all your turnovers.’ And I thought, ‘Great, just what I want to do,’” Burton recalls. “If there’s one thing I try not to do, it’s turn the ball over. But on every one, Natalie was like, ‘It was a turnover, but it made sense. These three aren’t even your fault. You’re gonna be fine.’
“She provided a level of reassurance and confidence in me that I hadn’t experienced before in the league. That’s when I realized that I was in a different place and that things could go a lot differently for me with Golden State.”
That feeling proved prophetic. Burton’s forgettable debut became a footnote in what turned into a breakout season. The 25-year-old guard set career highs, averaging 12 points, 6 assists and 1 steal per game, and earned the league’s Most Improved Player award while helping the Valkyries reach the playoffs in their inaugural season.
Her dad says that conversation with Nakase, the WNBA’s 2025 Coach of the Year, was a turning point for Veronica. After that, “when she missed a shot, she didn’t have to look over her shoulder and wonder, ‘Am I coming out?’ The coach said, ‘Go be Veronica Burton. Go do you,’” he says.
Veronica hadn’t felt that sense of trust and freedom since Northwestern, where she led the Wildcats to a Big Ten championship in 2020 and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021 — the program’s first in six years. “She went back to feeling like she was playing for Northwestern again,” says Steve.
Northwestern has always been part of Veronica Burton’s life.
Her parents met as student athletes at the University. Steve played quarterback for the Wildcats football team. Veronica’s mother, Virginia “Ginni” Vath Burton ’85, was an All-American and Big Ten champion swimmer. Veronica’s late grandfather, Ron Burton Sr. ’60, was an All-American halfback and a pro football player; he is a member of both the College Football Hall of Fame and Northwestern Athletic Hall of Fame. (Veronica wears his number, 22, in his memory.) Three of her uncles also suited up for the Wildcats on the gridiron, including Paul Burton ’96, ’98 MS, who played in the 1996 Rose Bowl.
“Northwestern made us think bigger,” Steve Burton says. “We were around students who dreamed big, and that’s what I wanted for my kids: to dream big. It just changed our mindset.”
Veronica and her parents have always been close, but they didn’t always see eye to eye on Northwestern. While some children dream of following in their parents’ footsteps, Veronica took a different approach.
“I actually didn’t really care for Northwestern at all,” she admits. “A lot of people thought that I was bound to be a Wildcat, but I didn’t really see it as part of my future.
“My parents, I think, were secretly emailing Northwestern Coach Joe McKeown, begging him to come to one of my high school games.”
When recruiting offers from other high-profile basketball schools didn’t materialize as she had hoped, Burton reluctantly visited Northwestern and felt an instant connection to the coaches and players who welcomed her.
“I fell in love with it,” Burton admits. “I met some of the players, and I just knew that it was my kind of place and my kind of people.”
The Burton family, from left, Steve; Veronica’s sister Kendall; Veronica; and Ginni, with Northwestern coach Joe McKeown at Burton’s Senior Night in 2022. Credit: Courtesy of Northwestern University Athletics
McKeown visited Burton multiple times during her recruitment, watching her play in tournaments and chatting candidly during her on-campus visits about her potential legacy. “We talked about the things that she wanted to accomplish on and off the court and her establishing her own identity,” McKeown says. “It was going to be about Veronica Burton — not her family’s incredible history.”
McKeown’s successful recruiting pitch became Burton’s reality.
McKeown instilled confidence in Burton and encouraged her to become a vocal leader. He made her the starting point guard and named her team captain as a sophomore. As a player, as a student, as a leader, “he elevated me,” Burton says.
Burton defends Iowa’s Caitlin Clark. Credit: Courtesy of Northwestern University Athletics
Burton developed into one of the great defenders in Northwestern and Big Ten history, winning Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors three straight times. Her tenacity, speed and defensive acumen set her apart. She routinely drew the toughest assignments, including Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, a revolutionary scorer who broke the NCAA Division I record for most points by any men’s or women’s player. She and Burton faced each other five times in college, and in those games, Burton and her teammates held Clark to an average 7 points below her usual scoring output.
By her final two seasons, Burton had developed a more well-rounded game, with her offensive abilities catching up to her defensive reputation. She became the first Wildcat in program history to be named an Associated Press All-American and finished third in career assists. (Senior Caroline Lau passed Burton for third all-time in 2025–26.) Burton also ranks second all-time in steals at Northwestern and second in the Big Ten since 1987–88.
“She was labeled as this defensive player, but in my mind, she was scoring the most on our team the last two seasons I was there,” Northwestern teammate Jordan Hamilton ’21 says. “She’s much more than an elite defender.”
Burton’s well-rounded game made her a solid fit for the WNBA. McKeown, who retired in March after his 18th season as Northwestern’s head coach, says he knew Burton had pro potential by the second week of her first year. Hamilton knew on day one.
“She was different,” says Hamilton, who was a sophomore when Burton joined the team in fall 2018. “When Veronica and her class got to Northwestern, their buy-in was immediate, and she was leading the charge. Her demeanor was, ‘I can be great, and I’m going to be great.’”
Hamilton says Burton also brought the fun. She remembers a road trip to Wisconsin during her junior year when Burton helped coordinate a team talent show. Burton sang “We Are Young” by fun., with all her teammates as her background dancers.
Those off-the-court memories remain Burton’s favorites too, like when her team won the 2019 Student-Athlete Advisory Committee lip-sync battle and proudly displayed the trophy in the team’s locker room.
Even four years after graduation, Burton still speaks daily with some of her former teammates and returns to Evanston once a year for a Wildcats game.
“Going to college is really daunting,” Burton says. “My teammates fully welcomed our first-year class and made it a family environment from the jump. It set the tone for my entire Northwestern experience. And then when I became older, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted everyone to feel the love and the sisterhood.
“I wouldn’t change my experience for anything. It was the perfect place for me. If it weren’t for Northwestern, I would not be the player or the person I am today.”
Maybe her parents were right after all.
Burton is challenging herself to build on her 2025 success.
Last season she was the only Valkyries player to start all 44 regular-season games. In a mid-August game against the Phoenix Mercury, she became the first player in the WNBA to record at least 24 points and 14 assists without a turnover. She also became the first player in WNBA history to increase her season averages by at least 5 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists per game from one season to the next.
“I knew the door was wide open with the new franchise,” she says. “I was really excited to be a part of ‘the first’ somewhere and to help build that culture.”
Burton and her Valkyries teammates exceeded expectations, reaching the playoffs in the team’s first season. And the Bay Area embraced the upstart squad — the Valkyries sold out all 22 home games and set a new WNBA attendance record at “Ballhalla,” as the Chase Center in San Francisco is affectionately known.
Veronica Burton averaged 12 points and 6 assists per game for the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries, helping the expansion team reach the playoffs in its inaugural season. Credit: Michael Hickey/Getty Images
Now the Valkyries are looking to establish an identity as a franchise and make a deeper postseason run.
“A championship is always the goal,” Burton says. “We put ourselves in a good position to continue to grow.
“Personally, I want to stay confident regardless of performance — and to just enjoy it.
In early April, Burton signed a multiyear contract to remain with the Valkyries. Their season tips off on Friday, May 8.
Burton spent part of the 2025–26 offseason (October through April) playing for the Mist Basketball Club in the Miami-based three-on-three Unrivaled league and training with the USA Basketball Women’s National Team. She helped lead the Mist to the Unrivaled championship in March.
Those who are close to Burton say her hunger never fades. Her entire basketball career has been defined by treating each milestone more as a starting point than a finish line. That includes last season’s Most Improved Player award.
“It was a big honor,” Burton says. “It highlights the growth that I’ve been hoping for. But it’s just a start. ‘Most improved’ says that I wasn’t that great the year before. It says I had a lot of room to grow — and I still do.
“My grandfather would always say, ‘Once you stop getting better, you’re no longer good.’ I am appreciative of the acknowledgment of my growth, but it excites me even more to continue to get better.”
Lia Assimakopoulos ’22 covers the Dallas Stars, Southern Methodist University and other college sports for The Dallas Morning News. As a Northwestern student, she was editor-in-chief of Inside NU and president of the Northwestern chapter of the Association for Women in Sports Media.
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