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Welcome to February 1, the first day where WNBA teams can officially sign players. There are a flurry of reported trades that gone on in the league. But we’re focused on just the Washington Mystics, and they have only lost one player, Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, to the Atlanta Dream in previous reports.
Now that we are in official free agency signing season, here are the three biggest questions they face.
Just how MUCH will the Mystics deconstruct?
Monumental Basketball President Michael Winger let go of then-General Manager Mike Thibault and Head Coach Eric Thibault. A significant number of fans celebrated the moves, citing the Mystics’ run on the Treadmill of Mediocrity since their 2019 WNBA championship and their consistent signing of international players who never play more than one year.
But here’s how I feel about a GM and Head Coach change, especially when Mike Thibault was by far the most successful GM and Head Coach in franchise history. Do you have someone BETTER than him to lead the Mystics to their next championship? And will some of these Mystics fans who wished that the Thibaults would be fired regret their wishes later?
My feeling is that at the very least, some fans are now regretting “running the Thibaults out of town,” so to speak. The Mystics aren’t in the conversation for any higher level free agent. And their new front office is unproven, to say the say the least.
Finally, considering that the Washington Wizards, the team Winger has spent more time on to this point, are about to break a franchise record for consecutive losses, my feeling is that he will instruct General Manager Jamila Wideman to tear the team down to the nuts and bolts. Then again, I may be wrong, but I’ll get to that later.
Will Ariel Atkins, Brittney Sykes and other veterans be traded?
After a major front office shakeup, a period of mediocrity, and a new front office known for rebuilding teams, it would be logical to assume that the Mystics will be in fire sale mode. If so, veteran players like Ariel Atkins, Brittney Sykes and Stefanie Dolson are all up for grabs.
If the 2026 WNBA free agency bonanza wasn’t going to happen, I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing some or even all of them going to other teams. But the WNBA is going through radical changes, and players will take notice of which teams are taking care of their veterans and treating their teams in a proper fashion. I hate to sound like I’m insinuating that the Mystics aren’t doing the right thing.
But I just don’t see the Mystics realistically helping themselves now or even 2026 by going all in on a deconstruction project without any true player to build around. In addition, with the WNBA expanding over the next few seasons, any tanking effort would be painfully obvious, especially from one of the league’s oldest teams.
How do the Mystics expect to get back to contending for WNBA championships given expansion and their front office change?
Winger mentioned in previous reports that he may not have hired Jamila Wideman as General Manager and Sydney Johnson as Head Coach if he was looking to simply compete in the WNBA given the status quo. Again, this came from a quote to Kareem Copeland of The Washington Post:
“Where we are as a league and what we also forecast the next 10 to 15 years of the ‘W’ will look like played a humongous role in the selection of Jamila and Sydney. If we thought the league was going to be status quo for the next 10 years, we wouldn’t have pursued the visionaries that Jamila and Sydney are.”
This sounds good on the surface. But 10 to 15 years is an eternity in a sports league. It’s more than length of an average player’s career.
Let’s assume that Wideman and Johnson are the right kinds of GMs and head coaches, respectively from 2035-40. That’s great. But it doesn’t mean much if the Mystics can’t compete from 2025-30 when a lot of this league expansion takes place.
I can go on and on, but it won’t be productive beyond this point. So let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
