‘I wanted this’: Brittney Sykes embraces leading rookie-laden Washington Mystics

Then Washington called timeout, and Sykes commanded the huddle before the coaches arrived. She looked each of her teammates in the eye and told them, “I believe in you.” The Mystics hung on to get the win.

Washington is the youngest team in the WNBA this season, with four rookies on the roster and an average age of 24.9 years old. It’s also the youngest team in franchise history — more than a full year younger than the 2024 team, which ranked in about the middle of the pack. Only the 31-year-old Sykes and 33-year-old center Stefanie Dolson had more than three years of WNBA experience entering 2025.

That’s meant Sykes, in her third season in Washington and ninth in the WNBA, has had to step into a bigger leadership role than ever before.

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“I wanted this responsibility,” Sykes told reporters at the Mystics’ media day on April 28. “This is something that has been on my … bingo card … for my career, to be a leader of a team, be a go-to player, be somebody that the rookies can look up to.”

But leadership hasn’t always come easily for Sykes. She struggled in the past to connect with her teammates when things weren’t going well on the court. People — from coaches to teammates to family members — told her that she wasn’t approachable and that her passion wasn’t coming off the right way to her teammates.

Sykes accepted the feedback and worked to fix it. She leaned on her therapist to help her and started being more vulnerable with her teammates. She tried to emulate leaders she’d played with in the WNBA or on Team USA, like Seimone Augustus, Candace Parker and Sylvia Fowles, while finding her own style.

Now, it’s all coming together for Sykes when the Mystics need it most. She’s gone from a player who mostly tried to lead with her play and control her own emotions in 2023, to a player who tried to lead the group more in 2024 but struggled with injuries, to someone who’s figured out what her leadership looks like in 2025.

Sykes signed with Washington in free agency ahead of the 2023 season, and the Mystics immediately asked her to take on a larger offensive role than she’d had in the past. Earlier in her career, she’d primarily been a defensive stopper and was sometimes dissuaded from shooting 3-pointers. But the Mystics begged her to shoot them, and they put the ball in her hands more by having her play more point guard.

Along with fellow point guard Natasha Cloud, Sykes had to do even more offensively after injuries wracked the roster. Much of her first season was about adjusting to that bigger role and having patience with herself when she missed a shot or turned the ball over.

“I just have to have this ‘F it’ mentality,” Sykes told The Next in July 2023. “Because I think that’s where I get in trouble is when I start seeing things that … I don’t like that I’m doing, and then I get hard on myself, and then I take myself out. And I can’t do that. I’ve seen what it can do to my team, and I don’t like doing that to my team.”

Sykes and Cloud also have similarly fiery personalities, and they both recognized that those could either fuel the team or backfire. As Sykes put it, “We can’t have two firecrackers.” They worked to control their emotions, knowing that if they lost their composure as the point guards, the whole team would follow.

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Despite the challenges that season, Sykes started all 40 games and averaged a career-high 15.9 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 2.0 steals per game.

“During that time, Slim led by showing the best version of her on the floor,” center/forward Shakira Austin told The Next on May 16, using Sykes’ nickname. “She was that person we needed consistently. She pushed herself and worked hard and always … competed when we touched the floor. …

“[Now] she’s transitioning to being a little more vocal instead of just showing — like, we know you can hoop.”

Entering the 2024 season, Sykes knew she needed to lead not just herself, but also the group. She had to go from leading by example to also being a vocal leader. She had a year of experience with the Mystics, and Cloud had signed with the Phoenix Mercury, leaving Sykes as the primary point guard.

“The responsibility has heightened, and that’s a good thing,” Sykes said during preseason that year. “You would want that if you want to continue to grow in your career. It’s uncomfortable as hell. I’m learning new things that I thought I kind of figured out already and it’s like, no, no, no. You have to continue to grow and continue to figure [it] out.”

But in the second game of the season, she sprained her ankle, which caused her to miss 10 games. Then she sprained her foot in her first game back and missed another 12. That meant Sykes could no longer lead by being her best self on the court, and she had to find other ways to help her team. That required some trial and error, but she learned a lot about leadership that still applied when she returned to action.

“You can see that she was trying different things, and that’s all you can ever ask,” former Mystics and current Atlanta Dream guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough told The Next on May 16. “… In some cases, she was uncomfortable, and she was vulnerable in that, saying … like, ‘The coaches are asking me something, and so I’m just working through this uncomfortability.’

“And so that was cool to see because, again, she could have rejected it and said, ‘This ain’t me. I don’t know why you guys are asking this of me. Ask somebody else.’ But … I thought she did a really good job while working through all of that.”

Looking back, Sykes believes she talked too much last season. She had the right intentions, wanting to help the team be great, but she’s since realized that she was saying too much for all of it to get through to her teammates.

In November, after the Mystics’ season ended, Sykes participated in a USA Basketball camp that would help decide the U.S. team for the FIBA 3×3 AmeriCup. Sydney Johnson, the head coach of that team, didn’t know Sykes well at the time, but he quickly noticed her potential as a leader.

“You can just see a certain energy that she exudes,” Johnson told reporters on May 10. “And … her energy comes from wanting to do well for the team and with her teammates, and not everybody’s necessarily wired like that. It’s fine as long as they’re good; then they’ll bring other people along. Slim’s not like that. Slim is trying to push the team forward and be an essential part of helping with that. … That has leadership written all over it.”

When Sykes made the AmeriCup team, Johnson made it clear right away that he expected her to lead her teammates. That role is especially important in 3×3, where coaches can’t instruct players during games. The Americans won a silver medal, and Sykes and Johnson’s experience together set a foundation for the 2025 Mystics season, as Johnson was named Washington’s head coach in December.

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After the AmeriCup, Sykes competed in the inaugural season of Unrivaled, a domestic 3×3 league, from January to March. Playing for Rose BC, she teamed up with — and studied — Las Vegas Aces point guard and three-time WNBA champion Chelsea Gray.

“Seeing how she led us in 3×3, it really, really helped me translate to coming back to 5×5 and being a leader for my team,” Sykes told reporters on May 9. “… Now I understand why it’s so imperative to have your point guard be poised and how you have your leader be poised in times of trouble, because every time I looked at her, I never fret. … So I just take that from her and really learned how to be a better leader through her.”

Sykes knew she’d be relied on as a leader this season as she saw free agency unfold. Guards Walker-Kimbrough, Ariel Atkins, Karlie Samuelson and Julie Vanloo all left through a combination of trades, signings and expansion draft selections.

“I’m left looking around, and I’m like, ‘Oh man, I am the only one left,’” Sykes said at media day.

Sykes was ready to meet the moment, using everything she learned over the past two years. Johnson has given Sykes and Dolson free rein to lead both on the court and off, calling them the team’s “bookends.”

On the court, Sykes has been elite, averaging 26.3 points, 5.0 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 1.3 steals in 35.0 minutes per game. She’s been so central to the Mystics’ offense that Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon joked before playing Washington on Friday that her keys to the game were, “Keep the ball away from Brittney Sykes, keep the ball away from Brittney Sykes and keep the ball away from Brittney Sykes.”

“I prayed about this position,” Sykes told reporters on Sunday about being the Mystics’ go-to player. “I worked hard for this position, so to not honor it and … go hard for my team? Nah, I can’t give this shit up. … It’s [as] blunt as that.”

“I don’t have enough good things to say about Slim,” rookie wing Sonia Citron told reporters after Sykes scored 30 points in a loss to the Golden State Valkyries on Wednesday. “I mean, she’s just an amazing player, an amazing leader. And … when she’s playing like that, you want to get her the ball. She had the hot hands, and she’s just relentless.”

Sykes has been equally effective as a leader, keeping her cool when things haven’t gone right and picking her spots to talk rather than trying to solve for every shortcoming. She calls those spots “pockets,” and she’s comfortable sharing the load. Sykes, Dolson, Austin and even rookie point guard Georgia Amoore all have their own pockets where they speak up. 

And when it’s not time for Sykes to talk, she’s gotten better at letting things go and moving on.

“[Our play] looks crazy sometimes, and she just has a look,” Austin said. “But she doesn’t say nothing, and then she lets it go. And I’m like, ‘Growth. There we go.’ Before, it could have been a whole show. So yeah, I’m so proud of her and just the person and the teammate she’s trying to be.”

Jade Melbourne, a 22-year-old point guard, first played with Sykes in Australia in the 2021-22 WNBL season, and they’re now in their second season as Mystics teammates. Melbourne was the first player Sykes mentored as a professional, so she’s seen Sykes’ leadership develop over the years. Along with Sykes’ improved poise and ability to pick her moments to speak up, Melbourne said Sykes has refined her delivery.

“When I was 19, she would elaborate on things, whereas now she kind of gets more to the point,” Melbourne told The Next on May 10. “And maybe she had to elaborate for a 19-year-old who was kind of oblivious to a few things … on the court. But just the way she can narrow things down now … she’s able to point out plays from three possessions ago and still remember the context that she wants to give to me.”

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Mistakes, especially easily avoidable ones, can still test Sykes’ patience. But she said the presence of the four rookies is “like a superpower” for her, reminding her to keep her cool. She doesn’t want them to absorb any bad habits from her, and she’s realized over time that everyone learns differently and at different speeds. She knows all of her teammates are trying, and she’s matured as a leader enough to give them the grace they need.

In turn, that has helped the Mystics’ younger players play confidently, without being afraid of making mistakes. Sykes got emotional at the end of the first official preseason practice because one of the rookies told the group that she thought Sykes was approachable even when things were going badly. For Sykes, that comment validated all the work she’d done to be better.

Sykes’ growth is also evident when she’s not playing. Whereas last season involved some trial and error there, she seemed to know exactly how to lead when the Mystics scratched her from Friday’s game just before tipoff. She became even more vocal, whether it was talking with Citron on the bench or using timeouts and other stoppages to build rookie forward Kiki Iriafen’s confidence.

“She was talking to us throughout the whole game, me especially,” Iriafen told reporters postgame. “… She [was] just telling me … I’m capable of playing against the best of the best, so to really not second-guess myself and kind of just be confident when I’m playing out there. But it’s something that she does every game for me, but definitely a lot more today.”

Sykes, along with Dolson, has been the leader the Mystics need, but she knows she still hasn’t figured everything out. And she doesn’t hesitate to ask when she’s wondering whether she made the right decision.

“I’ll come over and I’ll be like, ‘Was I supposed to say that thing?’” Sykes told The Next on May 10.

Sometimes, a coach is her sounding board; other times, Austin fills that role.

“I’ll be like, ‘What you said was right. The way you said it was wrong. The timing was wrong,’” Austin said.

“I’m open to that type of critiquing because it just makes me better, and it’s just a conversation being had,” Sykes added. “I don’t think you’re trying to … make me feel bad. I think you’re just trying to make me better.”

However, there was one time this season Sykes didn’t want outside opinions. In training camp, she heard the rookies debating whether to call her “Grandma” or “Aunty.”

“I’m not no grandma, man!” she exclaimed at media day. So Sykes became the team aunt.

Since then, all the young players have been soaking up lessons from her, just like Sykes learned from Gray and others before her. After Sunday’s win, Citron reposted a clip of a happy Sykes on her Instagram story.

“Just a rook trying to make Aunty Slim proud,” Citron wrote.

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The Next’s Natalie Heavren and Kelly Johnson contributed reporting for this story.