September 13, 2025
The Washington Mystics’ season is over, but the roots of a rebuild are in place
Though ending on a 10-game losing streak was disappointing, 2025 was never about results for the Mystics
Whenever the Washington Mystics wore their black Rebel Edition jerseys for home games in 2025, they played a corresponding pregame hype video. The video had game highlights and other footage of the players wearing those jerseys, often while the words “Battle,” “Struggle” and “Overcome” floated in the background in gold letters.
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Those three words ended up being fitting, as the rebuilding Mystics did those things throughout the season.
In the preseason, they were widely picked to finish 11th or 12th in the 13-team WNBA. Yet they battled to an 11-11 record at the All-Star break, which put them in playoff position.
Then, after trading leading scorer Brittney Sykes on Aug. 5, the Mystics struggled down the stretch. They lost their final 10 games, missed the playoffs and finished 10th with a 16-28 record. But they also overcame that disappointment and saw the bigger picture of what they were and are trying to build.
“We don’t want to romanticize [our situation] too much. We really do want to be in a position where we keep playing,” first-year head coach Sydney Johnson told reporters after the season finale on Tuesday. “… But I will also say that it’s been a heck of a ride. … There’s real joy in this. And I think that that, among some other things, is a really good thing to build upon.”
“We would love to be in the playoffs and at least have a shot at that, but I think we exceeded everybody’s expectations, and we’ve grown so much,” rookie forward Kiki Iriafen told reporters during exit interviews on Wednesday. “We learned so much. … We did a lot this season that I don’t think we even expected.”
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Part of the reason the Mystics were picked to finish near the bottom of the league was their inexperience. Before losing Sykes, forward Aaliyah Edwards and forward Sika Koné at the trade deadline, the Mystics were by far the WNBA’s youngest team. In fact, they were three years younger than the median team — the equivalent of college freshmen playing against seniors — and 4.7 years younger than the oldest team.
Recognizing that, Johnson and first-year general manager Jamila Wideman were patient from the beginning. The goal wasn’t to win a championship this season; it was to build a foundation for long-term success.
“If we want to get to the level of a New York [Liberty] or a Minnesota [Lynx], it doesn’t … start overnight,” Johnson said on Wednesday. “You got to build towards it.”
So instead of focusing on wins and losses, the Mystics focused on certain habits: playing hard, getting better, communicating, being humble and finding joy.
In part, it worked because Johnson embodied those things. When the Mystics were 2-3 in late May, he said, “I’m having the time of my life. … People think I’m crazy. I don’t know if my bosses believe me. But I’m just really enjoying this.”
He repeated that sentiment on Tuesday, before the Mystics lost their 10th straight game, and on Wednesday, after the season ended.
That mindset took the pressure off the players because they knew all they had to do was focus on the things they could control.
“Coach Syd is amazing,” rookie guard Sonia Citron told reporters on Wednesday. “From the beginning, he kind of made it easy to play for him. I think he’s just done a fabulous job really setting the culture. … He’s going to be the first person to push you and make you be better, and also the first person to say, ‘Hey, I see you. … You’re getting better at this.’”
“All we asked from everyone was competing all the time,” veteran center Stefanie Dolson told reporters on Wednesday. “We obviously knew it was new staff, new management … so we knew it was going to be a lot of growing pains and a lot of ups and downs. And I think overall, I think everyone was just really adaptable. …
“We grew together. Everyone grew individually. … So I think just overall, it’s a season that we can look back at and be happy with and be proud of ourselves for.”
Despite the Mystics’ youth, they found some early success. Before the All-Star break, they beat the eventual top three teams a total of four times. They often won simply by outworking teams, including coming back from large deficits. Overall, nine of their 16 wins came after trailing by at least 10 points, and three came after trailing by 15-plus. They had a knack for fourth quarters, winning just 11 first halves but 22 fourth quarters.
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Several of the rookies said their belief in themselves and the team grew after games against the Las Vegas Aces, and Johnson also identified those games as pivotal. On May 23, the Mystics lost by just 3 points in Las Vegas, even though — as Johnson pointed out at the time — the Mystics had four rookies and the Aces had four Olympic gold medalists.
“To be close in that game, I feel like that was the moment,” Iriafen said. “At least, [Citron] and I have talked about it: That was the moment that we were like, ‘OK, we can play at this level. It’s not easy, but we’re capable of doing it.’”
Fellow rookie Lucy Olsen starred in the Mystics’ next game against the Aces, scoring 14 points in a career-high 37:31. That showed her she could make a real impact in the WNBA, she said on Wednesday.
All season long, Citron and Iriafen were pillars of the team’s success, and both were named WNBA All-Stars. Citron averaged 14.9 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.3 steals in 32.2 minutes per game. She broke the Mystics’ single-season scoring record with 657 total points and had the highest 3-point percentage (44.5%) of any WNBA rookie ever on at least 125 attempts.
Meanwhile, Iriafen averaged 13.3 points, a team-high 8.5 rebounds and 1.6 assists in 26.9 minutes per game. She broke the Mystics’ single-season records for total rebounds (376) and double-doubles (16), among others.
“I didn’t realize there was that many records to break!” point guard Jade Melbourne told reporters on Wednesday.
Before being traded, Sykes led the Mystics with 15.4 points and 4.4 assists per game and was named an All-Star for the first time in her career. Center/forward Shakira Austin, who won AP Comeback Player of the Year for her performance after a series of injuries, added 12.7 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.
The Mystics’ point guards also each had career years. At age 26, Sug Sutton completed her first full season as a starter. She averaged 7.4 points and 3.9 assists against just 1.9 turnovers per game while shooting 35.3% from behind the arc.
“This whole season, it was me fighting that battle, like, ‘Am I capable of doing this?’” Sutton told reporters on Wednesday. “And I got that clarity of that [in] that last game yesterday of, I can do it. I did it. And I think fighting that mental battle, that was something I grew into, and … that’s going to take me a long way.”
Melbourne played over 1,000 minutes this season — more than in her first two WNBA seasons combined. She averaged 5.9 points and 2.9 assists against 1.7 turnovers per game, mainly off the bench.
“You see Sug and Jade both with a little bit more shoulders back and pointing and directing,” Johnson said before Tuesday’s game. “Leadership and confidence are things that I think they have taken major steps in.”
Despite the growth from individual players and the team’s early success, the Mystics stumbled in August. Other teams reached another gear with the playoffs in sight, and they exploited the Mystics’ persistent weaknesses and Sykes’ absence. The Mystics’ final win came on Aug. 17 against the Los Angeles Sparks, another team that missed the playoffs.
“There’s a seriousness — a ruthlessness, to be honest — in terms of how teams play to get into the playoffs and get themselves going,” Johnson said. “And that’s a good experience for us. … We clearly see the momentum that we’ve built. But there’s a couple more levels up.”
One of the Mystics’ clearest weaknesses all season was 3-point shooting, and Johnson said on Wednesday that he wants to take and make more threes in 2026. They attempted only 17.1 threes per game this season, easily the fewest in the league, and made just 32.9%. Every other team took at least 20 per game, and the Golden State Valkyries took nearly 30. In fact, the Mystics took more threes than the league average of 24.2 just once — in a blowout loss to the Valkyries on Aug. 30 where they described their play as uncharacteristic.
In addition, Johnson had wanted the Mystics to play fast and shoot within the first eight seconds of the shot clock, but they weren’t particularly effective at that in Year 1 of his tenure. Only 18.8% of the Mystics’ shots came within the first eight seconds, which ranked 11th in the WNBA.
They also ranked 11th in points per possession in transition, meaning that they weren’t very efficient there. And as might be expected for a young team trying to play quickly, they had the second-highest turnover rate in the league at 19.2%.
Despite missing the playoffs for a second straight season, the Mystics accomplished what they wanted to in terms of player development and culture. And they’re set up well for the future with four rookies and second-year guard Jacy Sheldon under contract for 2026 and three first-round draft picks in 2026.
“I’m still very pleased with what we said we were going to do,” Johnson said on Wednesday.
“I think from start to finish, everyone grew in some sort of aspect,” Melbourne said. “People, games collectively got a lot better. … The buy-in from everyone’s really laid the foundation for what I know this franchise wants to do moving forward.”
One example of how the Mystics’ culture held together was in the season finale, after they’d been eliminated from playoff contention. Facing the defending champion Liberty on the road on Tuesday, it would’ve been easy for the Mystics to fold early.
Johnson asked Dolson to address the team at Tuesday’s shootaround. She summarized the season’s ups and downs and encouraged her teammates to finish strong, to set themselves up for next season regardless of the score.
“She spoke beautifully about it, and everybody got it because we’ve kind of lived that,” Johnson said.
Though the Mystics lost 75-66, they fought back from a 17-point deficit and won the second half by 6. They also had 24 assists on 27 field goals and committed only 10 turnovers, prompting Johnson to say they showed “another level of fierceness.”
“As we’re trying to level up … that has to become part of our DNA,” he added. “And I was really, really proud to see that on display this evening.”
Also in the Mystics’ DNA this season: battling, struggling and overcoming. It’s not certain when those battles and struggles will turn into more wins — or a playoff run. But the way the Mystics went about things this season helped prepare them to get there one day.
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Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The Next. The Next’s editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.
Written by Jenn Hatfield
Jenn Hatfield is The IX Basketball's managing editor, Washington Mystics beat reporter and Ivy League beat reporter. She has been a contributor to The IX Basketball since December 2018. Her work has also appeared at FiveThirtyEight, Her Hoop Stats, FanSided, Power Plays, The Equalizer and Princeton Alumni Weekly.
