Washington Mystics

Team information

Inaugural season: 1998

Home arena: Entertainment & Sports Arena, St. Elizabeth’s East Campus

Owner: Ted Leonsis and Monumental Sports & Entertainment

Team colors: Red, blue, silver, white

Overview

The Washington Mystics are a Washington DC-based American sports franchise. They are part of the Eastern Conference of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team was founded in 1998 and owned by Monumental Sports & Entertainment. As one of the WNBA’s first expansion teams, the Mystics struggled in their early seasons. They had twelve coaches in their first fifteen years. Although they made it to the league championship semifinal series twice, it took twenty years before the Mystics appeared in the WNBA finals in 2018. The following year, they won their first championship. Despite their struggles, the team led the league in home attendance for six of their first eleven seasons.

History

The Mystics were one of the first two expansion franchises to join the eight original teams of the WNBA, which began play in the summer of 1997. On October 1, 1997, the league announced that new franchises would play in Washington and Detroit for the 1998 season. The franchises were awarded on the condition that the team sell three thousand season tickets and arrange for radio and television broadcast contracts.

On December 16, 1997, the Washington franchise announced its new name. “Mystics” was chosen because it had magical implications that complimented the name of the Wizards. The Wizards are a National Basketball Association (NBA) team that shared owners with the Mystics at that time.

The team also began putting together a roster to be ready to compete in the summer 1998 WNBA season. The first player signed by the team was Nikki McCray, an Olympic gold medal winner. McCray had been the Most Valuable Player (MVP) in the American Basketball League, a rival league of the WNBA.

The Mystics’ first season started off rocky. They lost three games on the road before winning their home opener before a WNBA-record crowd of 20,674 fans at what was then called the MCI Center. The win was the highlight in a season that saw the Mystics finish with a record of 3–27, which gave them the worst winning percentage in professional basketball history. The dismal record resulted in the first pick in the next draft. The Mystics selected Chamique Holdsclaw, a standout from the University of Tennessee.

Bolstered by Holdsclaw’s play, the Mystics made the playoffs for the first time in 2000 but were eliminated in the first round. The team’s struggles continued in 2001, but in 2002, under the leadership of coach Marianne Stanley, the Mystics won their first-ever playoff game. Stanley was the Mystics’ sixth head coach in their first five years. Stanley resigned in 2004 and was replaced by Michael Adams, who lasted one season before resigning.

In 2005, Wizards owner Abe Pollin sold the Mystics to Ted Leonsis, chairperson and majority owner of Lincoln Holdings, LLC, which does business as Monumental Sports & Entertainment. The team’s struggles on the court continued, however, and the Mystics were barely over a .500 winning percentage over the next few seasons. In 2008, they finished next to the last in the league. With ten coaching changes in eleven years, the Mystics were unable to find any momentum or consistency.

The 2009 season brought changes throughout all levels of the Mystics’ personnel. A new general manager, Angela Taylor, was hired, along with a new interim coach, Julie Plank. The player lineup was shuffled as well. The league had two drafts that year. In addition to the regular entry draft, a dispersion draft was held to redistribute the players from the Houston Comets as that team folded. The Mystics chose forward Marissa Coleman in the entry draft and guard Matee Ajavon in the dispersion draft. With these personnel changes, the team made the playoffs but were eliminated in the first round.

In 2010, the Mystics saw some success. They finished in first place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 22–12 and advanced to the playoffs. Once again, however, they failed to advance past the first round.

The 2011 and 2012 seasons combined were the worst in the team’s short history. Over two years, they managed only eleven wins and lost fifty-seven games. Following the 2010 season, Trudy Lacey, took over as coach and general manager after the 2010 season as part of a cost-saving measure by the team. Dissatisfaction with management changes caused several players to request and be granted trades, resulting in more turmoil for the team. Before the 2012 season, Lacey was replaced with Mike Thibault, who also served in both roles.

The 2013 season began another rebuilding phase for the Mystics. They finished with a .500 record of 17–17, a drastic improvement from their 2012 record of 5–29. They made their first of three successive playoff appearances but failed to advance past the conference semifinals in any of them.

After missing the playoffs altogether in 2016, the team made some significant trades in early 2017. On February 2, 2017, they traded their number-two pick in the draft and two players for Elena Delle Donne. Delle Donne, a six-foot-five-inch-tall forward/shooting guard, was the second overall pick in the 2013 draft and the league’s MVP in 2015. Four days after signing Delle Donne, the Mystics signed Kristi Tolliver as an unrestricted free agent.

The impact of these changes was soon apparent as the team finished 18–16 and returned to the playoffs. In 2018, they improved on this by making it to the WNBA finals for the first time in franchise history. However, they lost the championship to the Seattle Storm.

In 2019, the team moved from the Capital One Arena (formerly known as the MCI Center) to the Entertainment and Sports Arena. The team went on to have a record-setting season and finished with a record of 26–8. Delle Donne and Meesseman then led the team to their first-ever WNBA championship title. The Mystics were not able to defend their title, however, as they were eliminated in the first round in 2020 and failed to qualify for the playoffs in 2021.

For their first thirteen seasons, the Mystics played in jerseys featuring a white, dark blue, black, and gold color theme like their partner team, the Wizards. That changed to red, white, blue, and silver in 2011 when the team was under new ownership. The primary logo featured a stylized blue, white, and silver basketball going through a net on a swirling blue background. The team’s name and city overlay the basketball and net.

Despite many years of struggles on the court, the Mystics set the league attendance record six times. For years, banners were hung in their home arena rafters proclaiming the team “Attendance Champions.” This practice was controversial among fans and ended in 2010 after Leonsis became majority owner.

Notable players

Sports experts generally name Delle Donne as the most impactful Mystics player. In 2018, she reached the milestone of 3,000 points, a feat she accomplished in just 148 games. This made her the fastest woman to score 3,000 points in professional basketball history. In 2019, Delle Donna was the first female player to join the 50-40-90 club, meaning that she netted 50 percent of her shots from the field, 40 percent of her shots in the three-point range, and 90 percent from the free throw line. This put her in a category with NBA greats such as Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, and Stephen Curry.

Holdsclaw, the team’s 1999 draft pick, was the league’s rookie of the year that year and a five-time all-star for the Mystics. She notched a total of 2,920 points in a Mystics uniform and was the first female athlete to appear on the cover of SLAM magazine.

McCray, the first player named to the Mystics’ roster in 1998, was a three-time all-star. She scored a total of 1,921 points during her time with the Mystics. McCray was also a two-time Olympic gold medal winner.

Meesseman, drafted as a nineteen-year-old during Coach Thibault’s first season, became a power forward for the Mystics. In her six seasons with the team, she appeared in the all-star game once and scored 2,030 points. She averaged five rebounds and scored at least ten points during each of her first seasons except one.

Muriel Page was the Mystics’ first-ever draft pick and a member of the team through the 2005 season. During her 259 games with the team, she scored 1,782 points. She was traded in 2006 and eventually became a college coach.

Monique Curry wore number five for the Mystics between 2007 and 2014. A number-three pick in the 2006 draft, she started her career in Charlotte and briefly played in Chicago before being traded to the Mystics. In 2018, she returned to finish her career in Washington, where she scored a total of 2,224 points.

Bibliography

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“History of the WNBA.” Women’s National Basketball Association, 3 May 2002, www.wnba.com/news/history-of-the-wnba-2002/. Accessed 11 November 2021.

“Mystics Unveil 20th Anniversary Season Logo.” Mystics,Women’s Basketball Association, mystics.wnba.com/news/mystics-unveil-20th-anniversary-season-logo/. Accessed 11 November 2021.

“Ranking the Top 10 Washington Mystics of All Time.” NBC Sports Washington, www.nbcsports.com/washington/wizards/ranking-top-10-washington-mystics-all-time. Accessed 11 November 2021.

Voelpel, Mechelle. “Washington Mystic Put Long History of ‘Mistakes’ Behind Them.” ESPN, 4 Oct. 2019, www.espn.com/wnba/story/‗/id/27764296/washington-mystics-put-long-history-mistakes-them. Accessed 11 November 2021.

“Washington Mystics.” Mystics, Women’s Basketball Association, mystics.wnba.com/#. Accessed 11 November 2021.