Jenn Hatfield of The Next<\/a>, Mystics General Manager Jamila Wideman said in an exit interview that next season would likely be \u201cmore of the same.\u201d She wouldn\u2019t say that the postseason would be a goal in 2026, but wouldn\u2019t say that the playoffs are not a goal either. Here is a quote from Hatfield\u2019s piece.<\/p>\n\u201cWhether [next season] includes the playoffs or not, I think the important thing for us is to remember that we are building for something even bigger than that,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we are building with an aspiration to create a culture of competitiveness that lets us have the playoffs in our sight year in and year out. And so I think we\u2019re one year into building that foundation, and we look forward to continuing to build next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether [next season] includes the playoffs or not, I think the important thing for us is to remember that we are building for something even bigger than that. I think we are building with an aspiration to create a culture of competitiveness that lets us have the playoffs in our sight year in and year out. And so I think we\u2019re one year into building that foundation, and we look forward to continuing to build next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
I would agree with Wideman that developing Citron and Iriafen need to be the top priority. They have three first round draft picks for 2026. It mirrors Monumental Basketball President Michael Winger\u2019s vision on how professional teams should be built. After all, look at how the Wizards are going nearly scorched earth on finding as many first round draft picks as possible over the last three years.<\/p>\n
Here is where things could get interesting, though. The Mystics, unlike the Wizards, had two rookies who made the All-Star team in Wideman\u2019s first year as GM and Winger\u2019s first year having hands on control over the Mystics. If I were a betting man, the Mystics have a better chance of making the playoffs and being a contender than the Wizards because of that head start with Citron and Iriafen outperforming expectations.<\/p>\n
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But the Mystics also can\u2019t just sit back and hope every draft pick outperforms expectations. Some will underperform. Also, Citron and Iriafen need to remain happy in a quickly changing WNBA. The Mystics weren\u2019t bottom feeders in 2025 like many predicted. But after Brittney Sykes was traded to the Seattle Storm, it was clear that Winger and Wideman wanted to move full steam ahead with the Wizards plan which is still very much in its early stages.<\/p>\n
But if the Mystics do not try to add some veteran star along with Citron and Iriafen sooner rather than later, Washington can risk making them unhappy. This offseason is supposed to be the reset that can help the Mystics accelerate AND maintain long-term success. Hopefully, that happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Mystics finished the 2025 WNBA season 10th in the standings, missing the playoffs, but also finishing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[647,12549,60424,8255,4676,8254,99,64723,8253,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-165730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-brittney-sykes","9":"tag-collective-bargaining-agreement","10":"tag-jamila-wideman","11":"tag-kiki-iriafen","12":"tag-seattle-storm","13":"tag-sonia-citron","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-the-mystics","16":"tag-washington-mystics","17":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}