{"id":53594,"date":"2025-08-08T19:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/53594\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T19:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:08:10","slug":"locked-on-womens-basketball-how-are-the-mystics-preparing-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/53594\/","title":{"rendered":"Locked On Women’s Basketball: How are the Mystics preparing for the future?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first sent veteran guard Brittney Sykes<\/a> to the Seattle Storm in exchange for<\/a> former Mystic and three-time WNBA champion Alysha Clark<\/a>, as well as guard Zia Cooke<\/a> and Seattle\u2019s first-round pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft. Washington later cut Cooke as well as guard Sika Kon\u00e9<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe short answer is, it impacts the team in pretty much every way. She was their leading scorer, she was their top perimeter defender, she set the tone as one of only a few veterans on a really young team,\u201d Hatfield said. \u201cThe Mystics lose part of their identity this season, not their entire identity, but a key piece that they have to kind of rebuild without her now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The second sent forward Aaliyah Edwards<\/a> to the Connecticut Sun just hours before the trade deadline<\/a>. The Mystics received Jacy Sheldon<\/a> and the right to swap late first-round picks in the 2026 WNBA Draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cSheldon is a guard, the Mystics don\u2019t have much guard depth at all, especially after losing Sykes, so in the short term, Sheldon kind of balances the roster out a little bit better than Edwards did,\u201d Hatfield said. \u201cEdwards was being crowded out at the four, partly just because Kiki Iriafen<\/a>, Shakira Austin<\/a>, all those guys are really good, and they just had a lot of forwards to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Locked<\/a><\/p>\n

Tune in to Locked On Women\u2019s Basketball<\/p>\n

Here at The IX Basketball, in addition to the 24\/7\/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women\u2019s Basketball<\/a> podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.<\/p>\n

The two also discussed Hatfield\u2019s impression of the team\u2019s strategy going into future expansion drafts and how they can use their cap space through the remainder of the 2025 season. <\/p>\n

Make sure you tune in to Locked On Women\u2019s Basketball<\/a> for daily shows covering the latest news across women\u2019s basketball from the college ranks to the WNBA<\/a>, as well as Athletes Unlimited<\/a>, Unrivaled<\/a> and international competitions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The Next. The Next\u2019s editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first sent veteran guard Brittney Sykes to the Seattle Storm in exchange for former Mystic and three-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[44652,64,63,726,12279,44653,18497,85,44654,10730,5941],"class_list":["post-53594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-alysha-clark","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-brittney-sykes","tag-jacy-sheldon","tag-locked-on-womens-basketball","tag-sports","tag-sydney-johnson","tag-washington-mystics","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}