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The post Mystics’ Kiki Iriafen makes WNBA rookie history not seen since Tina Charles appeared first on ClutchPoints.
The Washington Mystics are in somewhat of a transition year after losing a lot of their more experienced pieces on the roster, including longtime superstar Elena Delle Donne to retirement, but there are some good signs to build off of early in the year.
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The Mystics had three picks in the top six of the WNBA Draft just before the season, and they are being put to good use. Even while rookie point guard Georgia Amoore sits out for the season with a knee injury suffered during the preseason, rookies Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron continue to impress.
Iriafen has ben putting up big game after big game for the Mystics, and she did so once again on Tuesday night against the Indiana Fever. The No. 4 pick in the draft scored 20 points on a very efficient 9-of-11 shooting to go along with nine rebounds, but the Fever still got the 85-76 win without Caitlin Clark.
Iriafen is still averaging a double-double through eight games with another great game in the books, a marker that puts her in some pretty rare company in the WNBA, via ESPN’s Alexa Philippou.
“Kiki Iriafen is the 6th player in league history to average a double-double through their first eight career games and first since Tina Charles in 2010,” Philippou wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
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Iriafen tore up the college game during her time at Stanford playing next to Cameron Brink, but she struggled to fully ingratiate herself into the system at USC last season. Now, however, she appears to have found some more comfort at the WNBA level and has broken out as one of the Mystics’ go-to scorers.
Coming into Tuesday’s clash, Iriafen was Washington’s third-leading scorer at 13.9 points per game, while Citron was the second-leading scorer at 14.3 points a night. The two rookies are clearly going places and are making a massive impact already as the Mystics look to remain in the playoff hunt.
The two are also making up the Rookie of the Year race at this point while Paige Bueckers makes her way back from a concussion. When the former UConn star does get back on the floor, she will have some work to do to catch up to Iriafen’s stellar pace.
