This is all academic because the front office wants to tank (we’re actually under the salary floor), but indulge me:
Amoore is not starter quality to say the least, Florez has great hustle and is a creative passer but not enough of a scoring threat to raise the team’s ceiling, and don’t pretend Harmon or Olsen can be a starting PG, no matter how much we may like them. Seems like we have nowhere to go but up?

2026 was an incredibly fun season, and this franchise really seems to be trending up! A lot of growth from a lot of players, but still some clear needs (shooting, point guard, etc.). Apologies if it’s not the time to post this yet, but I’m excited and already looking ahead to next season.

As we know, with such a young team, there is a LOT of cap space to work with. I wanted to see what would be possible with the roster for 2027 (barring any trades), so I noted the following:

• Which players I think are “Locks” to return
• Which players I think the team will keep
• Which players could move to a developmental contract
• Which free agent(s) could be acquired
• Which players could be drafted

I landed on the following:

LOCKS
- Shakira Austin
- Sonia Citron
- Kiki Iriafen
- Michaela Onyenwere
- Cotie McMahon
- Lauren Betts
- Georgia Amoore

KEEPS
- Lucy Olsen
- Cassandre Prosper (though I think both she and Dugalić are at risk of being waived/moved to Developmental… or both could stay on the roster, who knows)

WAIVED
- Alicia Florez

DEVELOPMENTAL
- Angela Dugalić (see note above)
- Rori Harmon

With a cap of $8.25M, that would put remaining cap space at $3.69M for 3 players from the draft or free agency.

From there, I think the Mystics could go big in free agency and rely on their first rounder in 2027. To that note, I think the most likely free agent home run would be Kelsey Plum at the Max contract. She doesn’t really have an allegiance to any team; she could very easily slide into the PG spot and lead the offense, even though she’s a big time scorer; and she is a heck of a shooter.

For the first round pick, I think the mystics go with either Hannah Hidalgo or S’Mya Nichols at #3 or #4. Hannah will depend on if she can get her perimeter shot back up to serviceable.

That would leave one roster spot open with just under $2.0M in cap space. And I think this roster would be one of the best in the league.

What do y’all think of this? Any big callouts I’m missing?

I liked him and then he did THAT. What is his issue? I better hear that she's hurt or is violently ill but I see her on the bench looking disappointed smh.

Hi r/washingtonmystics! I'm Emma Baccellieri, sports reporter for The Washington Sun and author of Court Queens. You can read my latest articles here. I'm hosting an AMA here at 1:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, October 6. Let's talk about this season and what's next for the Mystics. See you then!

Edit: Thank you for having me!

Thanks for having me, everyone! You can reach me at emmabaccellieri@washingtonsun.com!

Actual Flair: Sad and just a tad bit mad.

Are the Mystics the 8th or even 9th best team in the league? It's pretty clear that we would not have beaten NY so was wide spread league mediocrity the true source of our success? No I am not trying to diminish the team's accomplishment but I have asked myself this question for days on end.

Why in the heck couldn't the team (Austin and Betts) pound the hell out of the Dream centers. I know that Austin isn't a "pound the hell out of kind of center" but Betts should be! Is Okat THAT far ahead of Betts? For goodness sakes Bri Jones is injured and I am generally not impressed w Angel. I am sure that we would have won ONE game if D Bonner wasn't there.

I guess when the NBA season starts I'll forget about these questions - until next year.

How do you explain the last Mercury game?

I have been naysaying both Amoore (for being the worst starting PG in the league) and Johnson (for leaving her in) all season, but the response I’ve seen a lot is “she’s doing what they’re asking her to do.” The implication for me now is: she can score like that but they asked her not to.

So the possibilities are:

1. this is a fluke, they’re both still mid
   
2. Amoore is good, Johnson is mid. Amoore can do much more than she’s been doing, Johnson either won’t let her or can’t help her.
   
3. Amoore is mid, Johnson is good. He schemed playmaking duties between Citron and BLH and Amoore just got left open by the Merc because they weren’t worried about her. She can’t keep this up and her role will diminish.
   
4. They’re both good. I don’t know if anyone knows it, and I don’t know if anyone can see it, but it’s true.

My money is still on #1, but I’d love to be wrong and we see Amoore light it up a few more times. #2 is possible. I don’t see how #3 or #4 could be true, but please enlighten me.

After the 2013-2014 season the Warriors fired Mark Jackson and hired Steve Kerr, who’d never coached in the NBA. It was a tough decision: Jackson had taken a cellar-dweller team and gotten them to the playoffs, and they had a lot to be proud of, and the players liked him. The ownership, however, looked at the team and their style of play and decided that Jackson had hit his ceiling.

The Warriors dominated the league the next year, Curry won MVP, and the team won their first championship, and you know the rest.

You don’t have to look into a crystal ball to see the parallels with the Mystics. This was a great season, and we have an elite core just coming into their prime, and if we continue on this path, maybe we’ll be a little better next season, but a real contender? That would take a big move.

Do you think Sydney Johnson and this FO are capable of this based on what we’ve seen so far? This FO put together the youngest team ever to make the playoffs, kudos to them, but do we think they can build a champion? This coach is loved by his players and has helped them grow, but do you think he can take them to the next level?

Success in sports is not linear or predictable, and most importantly, it’s rarely incremental. Few teams turn from promising overachievers to championship contenders through player growth alone. They make a big change: they find a diamond in the rough in the draft, one of their role players steps up to be a star, they play a radically new style that unlocks their players’ potential and catches the league off guard, or they make a big shake up in their roster, and usually it’s some combination of these factors.

If this team contends for a title next season, it will be because of a big change, not a small tweak. We will need multiple things to go right and we’ll need no small amount of luck.

And we’ll need a different coach to make it happen.

Who do y’all want in the first round of playoffs (from teams that would be realistic, like obvi not LA or Phoenix)?

Out of the top 8 teams, I’d love to get Dallas, New York, or Atlanta. But the mystics would have to go on a real win streak and one of the top 4 teams would have to lose a lot.

Realistically, it’s gonna be one of the top 4 teams. I kinda want Golden State instead of Vegas or Minnesota. Or even Indiana. What do y’all think??

Well, I was hoping that GSV would win last night, but that didn't happen. And now, Minn has clinched the #1 seed even though Indy pulled out a victory over them yesterday. An Indy loss would have set us up nicely for the 5th seed.

With that said, Minn will probably rest their starters in their final game against Indy, which means an Indy win is likely and no 5th seed for the Mystics (assuming we win our final home game).

How are we feeling against a possible LVA matchup in the playoffs? Honestly, this was the one team I didn't want to see in the first round. Our front court will need to stay out of foul trouble. The back court matchup is where I feel we'll struggle.

I can't be the only one who thought that the difference in her confidence on offense has been huge compared to before the WC break. She had some games where she had one or 2 really good drives, but against Sky she was driving every time she got the chance, she was making no look passes, had great dribble moves and her entry passes were much sharper as well. Just all round offense was at a much higher level and she just looked so confident. That could be huge coming in to playoffs, especially with Georgia being more confident in her 3 point shot. We have two legit, usable point guards.

What? No free agent flair option?

As I understand there are only about 3 or 4 top flight names on the free agent market. Aren't the Mystics about a million under the salary cap? Is Kelsey Plum just what the doctor ordered w her championship playoff experience and all.

And before you say she is not a true point we could use her firepower at the 1.

My partner and I are at the game and we saw the guy who always barks during foul shots getting removed - did anyone see what happened?? It also looked like a lot of fans around him were supporting it?? He’s a season ticket holder!!

If we include the Fever and Liberty in a discussion about which lower seed is most likely to pull off an upset, of course most people are going to pick one of them. They're not really underdogs. They just happen to be bottom-four playoff teams in the standings right now. The other playoff teams below them aren't really worth discussing in this context either.

That leaves the two genuine underdog teams: the Washington Mystics and Dallas Wings. Forget the specific matchups for a minute. If you had to pick one of these two teams to beat a clearly superior opponent twice in a three-game series, which one would you trust more? Here's our take:

Starting lineups

Mystics projected starters: Shakira Austin, Kiki Iriafen, Michaela Onyenwere, Sonia Citron, Georgia Amoore

Wings projected starters: Jessica Shepard, Alanna Smith, Awak Kuier, Arike Ogunbowale, Paige Bueckers

Assuming Alanna can play and Paige is mostly healthy, this one easily goes to the Wings. The only thing I'd check in the Mystics' column might be chemistry. Washington clearly plays better defense, but Dallas plays even better offense. At least as far as the starters are concerned.

Advantage: Wings

Roster depth

And the scale immediately tips the other way. The Mystic's bench is young but more talented than the Wings'. There's actually some very interesting matchups to be found here (if they were playing heads up):

• Betnijah Laney-Hamilton vs Alysha Clark: the battle-tested veterans. BLH has substantially more left as an on-court contributor at this stage, while both bring championship experience. BLH has 26 career playoff games and started throughout New York's 2024 championship run.
• Aziaha James vs Cotie McMahon: two aggressive young perimeter players. Aziaha has been particularly impressive defensively this year, while Cotie gives Washington a physical downhill attacker.
• Lauren Betts vs. Li Yueru: this is where Washington really starts separating itself for me. Betts is already giving Washington 6.4 points and 4.4 rebounds in only 17.1 minutes, and there is obvious upside beyond her current role.
• The rest is really fillers vs. fillers. Not to downplay the occasional contributions those remaining players make but they don't tip the scales here in any way.

Advantage: Mystics

Playoff experience

Both teams have practically none beyond the battle-tested vets we mentioned earlier. Nothing to see here.

Coaching

Obviously, I give more weight to starting lineup quality than bench quality, so this isn't completely a tie-breaker in the "all else being equal" sense. But it's a tie-breaker for me because Washington's coach has led this ridiculously young team to the playoffs, while the other coach seems to weigh his team down more than build it up.

Coach Jose seems to have gotten over himself a little and is now more willing to adapt his scheme to his players, instead of just berating them for not completely molding themselves to his scheme, whatever that's been. That's progress, but it's not enough to erase what we've seen over the course of the season. And it's not enough to give us confidence he'll be able to make the even tougher necessary adjustments in the playoffs.

I've made it clear I really, really, really dislike Sydney Johnson the GM. But I might equally like Sydney Johnson the coach. The Mystics are talented but a less-qualified coach (I just mentioned him) could've easily led such a young team in the wrong direction.

Big advantage: Mystics

The outcome of WNBA games is so heavily impacted by the performance of star players that all of this could easily end up being worth no more than a squirt of Pabst. But if you could pick one of these teams to play in the first round, you should definitely pick the Wings. The Mystics' coach makes them more dangerous.

Mystics have an absolutely brutal stretch upcoming here:

vs Wings tomorrow
vs Dream Friday
vs new-and-improved Mercury Sunday
@ Aces next Tuesday
@ Aces next Thursday

Games every other day against top-4 teams and the team we need to hold off for the #8 seed.

It feels like this stretch will really test whether the Stics are just young and scrappy or real contenders.

If they go 3-2 I’ll be over the moon. If it’s 4-1 I might lose my mind

How are we feeling? What do we need to do to match up against these teams?

It's wild that this team did so little in free agency that they still have 1.83 million in cap space, and are still good enough for several people to have them at #2 right now.

I didn't consider this a development team, didn't understand the decision to mostly sit out free agency and don't understand the decision to not make a trade before the deadline.

If they had gotten Plum or even Skylar, I 100% would agree they're #2

Can someone explain the potential reasoning behind this? We are 2nd to last in 3pt shooting next to the Sun why are we taking a moreyball approach? Kiki attempted 103 mid range shots last year and is at 19 attempts on the year so far. I don’t understand the discouragment of a shot that’s essential to one of your core player‘s game.

Georgia shouting out how impactful Shakira's season has been this year with a MIP nod

Source IG: dbltakesports

How are we feeling about renewals?

I'm irritated that I'm paying so much and I can't even guarantee I'm getting all the emails. Had no IDEA about the meet up today.

Mystics really need to do a better job of taking care of their STH

Latest Updated Standings after completion of today's games. (July 18, 2026) Despite a bad loss against portland fire mystics holds onto the 8th spot which is two games ahead of portland and la and tempo losing also helped as well as they are 2.5 games ahead of la and 3 games ahead of tempo. Now Mystics face three tough games before the all star break against goldens state valkeries (x2) and las vegas aces. Now Mystics as you know pulled off an upset against Minnesota lynx on road when they were on a similar winning streak like Valkyries and they also beat liberty and dream as well when they were heavy underdogs as well. But the bad losses against portland sun seattle and la sparks hurt them in the standings. Consistency issues are there along with poor pg production. So can mystics win atleast one out of the next three games and hold onto the 8th spot?

After last night's game, a lot of press and content creators said that the Mystics were becoming villains in the W (they said it affectionately fwiw, comparing us to the Bad Boy Pistons). So, are we the baddies? We're definitely going to play spoiler as the season goes on.