Washington, D.C. Washington Mystics

The defining image of the Washington Mystics is Elena Delle Donne playing through the 2019 WNBA Finals with herniated discs in her back. That she not only played but dominated—earning Finals MVP honors and delivering the franchise its first and only championship—tells you everything about what the Mystics had and what they have been missing ever since. Delle Donne chose Washington, committed to Washington, and gave Washington the single greatest individual postseason performance in franchise history while her body was falling apart. The Mystics won the 2019 title at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in southeast D.C., their dedicated facility that made them the first WNBA team to play in a purpose-built arena.

What followed has been a slow, painful unwinding. Delle Donne's chronic back issues have kept her off the court for the vast majority of the seasons since that championship. Without their franchise player, the Mystics have struggled to find an identity, cycling through roster configurations in search of a formula that works. The 2025 season brought more of the same: a 16-28 record, another missed postseason, and the departure of head coach Eric Thibault, who left to join Cheryl Reeve's staff in Minnesota as an associate head coach.

There were glimmers of hope in the form of rookies Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron, both of whom contributed as Rookie All-Stars and offered a glimpse of what the next generation of Mystics basketball might look like. But the gap between where the franchise is and where it was in 2019 remains vast. The Mystics are a team with a championship banner, a dedicated arena, and a star whose brilliance was cut short by injury—a franchise still searching for the player and the moment that can reconnect them to what Delle Donne built.