Washington Mystics’ Shakira Austin is ready to put injury woes in rearview mirror

Austin has heard comments like that from fans and coaches during her career, she told reporters on Monday at the Washington Mystics’ preseason media day. She does have big dreams, ones that injuries have put on hold for the past two seasons. Now she’s finally in a good place mentally and physically, and she’s eager to get back to developing into the player she knows she can be.

“My health in general, mentally and physically, is, I feel like, where it needs to be,” Austin said. “It’s been a while.”

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Austin, the No. 3 overall pick in 2022, has always been a menace for the Mystics when healthy, particularly on defense. As a rookie, the 6’5 center/forward averaged 8.7 points and 6.4 rebounds while playing all 36 games. That August, she stated that she thought she deserved to win WNBA Rookie of the Year, and she ultimately finished second.

She seemed to be making a sophomore leap in 2023, averaging 11.4 points and 7.8 rebounds through 13 games. But in a June game against the New York Liberty, she strained her left hip while chasing a ball in transition. She ended up missing 20 games with the injury and another for rest.

When the playoffs came around, Austin was still out, and the Mystics were swept in the first round. That still nags at her, not just because she has never won a playoff game in her three seasons but also because of the helplessness she felt being at less than full strength.

In the offseason, Austin had surgery to repair a torn hip labrum. She wasn’t fully healthy entering training camp in 2024, but she was able to start the season on the court and was intent on “being the dominant player that I’m supposed to be from Day 1.” Then she banged the same hip in her sixth game and had to go through another rehab process.

Consistency in how her hip felt day-to-day was elusive during her recovery, and the Mystics held her out until she found it and could trust her body. She would miss 19 games before returning in mid-August.

“Coming back … I was really making strides to feeling like myself again,” Austin told reporters in her exit interview in September. “And that was just a completely happy feeling, just to see that I could do a single-leg layup or I could take off and feel like I had some type of speed.”

Less than two weeks after she returned, though, Austin sprained her left ankle. She played in one game later in the season, but she didn’t feel like herself, and the Mystics soon shut her down for the season.

“I just want to be right for next season,” she said in September, while acknowledging that her hip was feeling the best it had since her surgery. “I don’t want to go through another season like this.”

After Austin used the first part of the offseason to recover, she participated in Unrivaled, a domestic 3×3 league that played from mid-January to mid-March. She said on Monday that the style of play there “wasn’t the greatest” for her personally, and she averaged only 8.4 points and 4.1 rebounds per game, well behind the league leaders in both categories. But she showed she could get through the season healthy, even with a demanding schedule of three games in four days nearly every weekend.

Right after Unrivaled ended, Austin flew to Washington to prepare for the Mystics’ training camp. She is excited about playing for first-year head coach Sydney Johnson and his staff, to the point that she often finds herself beaming while texting with Johnson.

“Coach Sydney and the coaches he’s brought in [have] poured nothing but confidence into me,” she said. “I mean, when we’re just talking one-on-one, I just get so excited. I’m glad we’re just texting, because I would look crazy … in person. I’m just cheesing.”

Johnson has already declared that the 24-year-old Austin will be a cornerstone of the team this season alongside veterans Brittney Sykes and Stefanie Dolson. “I haven’t been shy about telling this team and the world, if [Sykes is] healthy, she’s playing,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “If Stef’s healthy, she’s playing. [If] Kira’s healthy, she’s playing. And then we’re trying to figure out what else is going on with us.”

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For Austin, it feels like everything is coming together ahead of her fourth WNBA season: a bigger role in Johnson’s system, a fully healthy body and good mental health.

She hasn’t set specific goals for herself this season, instead saying she just wants to “be great.” That includes showing more of her scoring ability than she’s been able to in past seasons, whether because she was on a deep and experienced roster as a rookie or because she was battling injuries thereafter. But she’s also emphasizing getting her teammates involved.

Austin has averaged 0.9 assists per game in every season of her career. And while her assist rate was a career-high 9.2% last season, that was still only about half of the league’s leader in that category among centers, New York’s Jonquel Jones.

“Coach Sydney has been helping me to realize that allowing my teammates to get easy shots and just getting them involved is going to open a lot more stuff up for me,” Austin said. “So that’s something I always wanted to show as part of my game as well, so … that’s the main focus for me.”

Dolson told reporters on Monday that she’d seen “spurts” of how she and Austin could play off each other last season, pointing specifically to a game against the Minnesota Lynx when Austin was passing adeptly in transition.

“She’s not only a scorer, but she can facilitate the ball really well and get other people open,” Dolson said, adding that Austin’s confidence has been apparent so far in training camp. “… We know people are going to collapse on her because they can’t guard her one-on-one. So my ability to knock down shots can just help her, and she can help me, and we can all help each other.”

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About a year and a half after her hip surgery, Austin is also thrilled with how she feels physically. She believes she’s gotten stronger and is in the best shape of her career. And crucially, she’s able to push her body in practice — and trust that it’ll recover — rather than taking one cautious step at a time during her rehab.

On Sunday, the team scrimmaged against male practice players for part of practice. There was a whistle as Austin got the ball in transition, but she continued to attack a practice player one-on-one as her teammates headed to the sidelines. She missed her layup, but there was a smoothness and a sureness to her movements — and no one watched with bated breath to see if she’d be OK afterward.

“I’m excited,” Austin said three times in the span of five sentences on Monday as she thought about the prospect of playing in games with her teammates and being fully healthy.

That excitement and emotional peace has been hard-earned. Growing up, basketball had typically been her “outlet” or “escape” from other things, and her main interest was excelling on the court. But while she was injured, she had to figure out who she was and what she enjoyed off the court.

Austin realized she loves fashion and food, and that period of self-discovery showed her that her world wouldn’t fall apart if she had to stop playing basketball. “I think I would be still an amazing human and probably have an even better career in something else,” she said on Monday. “… But I still love it here, and I want to be great.”

Austin also believes her growth off the court will make her a better teammate this season because she’ll be able to show up as her best self.

“I want to be able to make everyone around me better, but being 100% myself is, I think, going to do that,” she said.

And if she has the season she expects, she’ll be too busy proving herself right to notice whether her critics are still picking at her shortcomings.

“I’m just waiting to show the world what I know I can do,” Austin said. “… It’s not gonna be all glitz and glamour. I’m probably gonna look terrible some games [and] have bad days.

“But I know in the end, when I get to that final picture, it’s going to be all worth it.”