2026 WNBA Season Preview — Washington Mystics

Hello, hoopheads! We’re just a week away from the start of the 2026 WNBA season as our preview tour takes a trip to the nation’s capitol to check in on the WNBA’s version of the Muppet Babies, the Washington Mystics.

The Mystics made three picks in the top-six of last year’s WNBA draft just nine days after franchise icon Elena Delle Donne made her retirement official and less than two months after trading veteran guard Ariel Atkins for one of the highest of their first-round picks, so there was never really a doubt that Washington was in the midst of a rebuilding project. Two of those picks, Sonia Citron (No. 3 overall, the pick acquired from the Chicago Sky) and Kiki Iriafen (No. 4 overall), were instantly clear home runs and the first pair of rookie teammates named to the All-Star team excluding a group of 1999 Orlando Miracle teammates who were veterans of other pro leagues. The Mystics spent most of the season hovering around .500 and the fringe of the playoff race, but essentially pulled the plug on their own postseason hopes when they traded Citron and Iriafen’s fellow All-Star Brittney Sykes to Seattle in August for, of course, a first-round pick in this year’s draft. The third of last year’s first-round picks, former Kentucky and Virginia Tech point guard Georgia Amoore (No. 6 overall) suffered a torn ACL in training camp and will essentially give Washington four first-round rookies this season.

I’ve kinda spoiled this already, but it’s gonna look really, really young. Only four players on the team’s training camp roster were born in the 1990s and only one, Australian guard Alex Wilson, was born before 1999. She’ll be a 32-year old rookie if she makes the roster, and this is a roster that is not just young, but wildly inexperienced. Almost impossibly inexperienced, if we’re being honest. Only two of the 18 players in camp have more than one year of WNBA experience under their belts: 25-year old center Shakira Austin, who the Mystics retained as a restricted free agent after she signed an offer sheet with the Toronto Tempo, and 26-year old forward Michaela Onyenwere, who signed a two-year contract last month after spending the last two seasons with the Chicago Sky. Onyenwere already knows the top pick among this year’s trio of first-round rookies, UCLA center Lauren Betts, very well after spending the just-completed season as an assistant coach on Betts’ natty-winning Bruins team. The same can be said of the No. 9 pick, Betts’ UCLA teammate Angela Dugalić, who was selected with the pick Washington acquired in the Sykes trade. The No. 11 pick in this year’s draft, Ole Miss forward Cotie McMahon, was named first-team All-SEC in March after earning the same honors the previous two years in the Big Ten while playing at Ohio State. 

I’m never a fan of trying to glean too much from preseason games, but given the makeup of this Mystics roster, I figure it’s more informative to both you and me to see what the minute allocation in Washington’s preseason opener tells us about the other players trying to make the squad. For starters, and for lack of a better way of saying this, the starting five consisted of Citron and four rookies (Amoore, Betts, Dugalić and McMahon), although both Austin and Onyenwere were notably unavailable. Amoore played the least of those five in her return to the court, logging 13 minutes, but as a fan of hers for a long time, it’s just great to see her back on the court. The rest of the starters all played at least 20 minutes, a decent amount of run for a preseason opener. Two bench players also got 20+ minutes in: second-year former Iowa and Villanova (go ‘Cats) guard Lucy Olsen, a second-round pick last year, and rookie Cassandre Prosper, who the Mystics took early in the second round (No. 19 overall) out of Notre Dame. Third-round rookie Rori Harmon, the No. 34 overall pick, played 16 minutes and was the only other player to play more than 11. The only one of those players with WNBA experience, Olsen is coming off of a WNBL championship with the Townsville Fire and was named the WNBL’s Sixth Woman of the Year in February. Given they’re all players Washington has used draft capital on, they got the most play in the preseason opener, and Olsen’s form down under, it seems like a pretty safe bet that Olsen, Prosper and Harmon will join Austin, Amoore, and the six first-round picks on the regular-season roster. If that’s the case, there’s one full-time spot and two developmental spots left for the remainder of the players in camp.

This one was a struggle, given that there aren’t many Marvel heroes who are children. Kidding aside — see what I did there? — Washington really is one of the only teams I’ve struggled to pair with a deck, because so much of this team’s identity will be formed on the court over the next couple of seasons (assuming that Washington doesn’t go the LA route and turn this rebuild into a rehash). What I landed on is one of Snap’s earliest archetypes, built around the Silver Surfer card, but one which had fallen on hard times until a few recent card releases gave it a shot in the arm. On top of being an old franchise undergoing a youth movement, in a sense, this Surfer deck is also specifically built to buff cards in-hand before eventually dropping them on our opponent in a much more powerful state than they started in. I also just really wanted to play Captain Marvel and built this deck yesterday for that purpose.

The Mystics will probably find themselves drafting near the top of the first round again next spring, and multiple times if their recent history is anything to go by. I think they’re on the right path, though. It’s almost hard not to be with this much young talent, but I’m also of the opinion that they’re drafting the right young talent. I don’t have to squint hard to see a world in which Amoore, Citron, Dugalić, Iriafen and Betts start alongside each other for a long time, unless it’s McMahon starting over Dugalić, and in which those six players eventually form the core of a very good team. It’s just going to require living through the growing pains.