{"id":318928,"date":"2025-11-28T16:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T16:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/318928\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T16:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T16:50:07","slug":"which-team-is-further-ahead-with-its-rebuild-the-wizards-or-the-mystics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/318928\/","title":{"rendered":"Which team is further ahead with its rebuild, the Wizards or the Mystics?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Monumental Basketball President Michael Winger is the ultimate basketball decision maker for the Washington Wizards and Mystics. Since he was hired in May 2023 (and Greg Finberg has a one year review that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bulletsforever.com\/2024\/5\/24\/24162009\/michael-winger-year-in-review-washington-wizards-nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">you can read here<\/a>), Winger is in the middle of deconstructing both teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Wizards are still in the third year of a complete rebuild and have come off their worst two-year stretch in franchise history. They are on track for their worst three year stretch after the current 2025-26 NBA season. Wizards fans are frustrated with the losing, sure. But at the same time, I don\u2019t see the same degree of lampooning by the national media at Washington\u2019s expense like during John Wall\u2019s early years from 2010-13. I\u2019m glad the national media isn\u2019t lampooning the Wizards. But in a year where the NBA kicked off a new media deal, the Wizards are effectively absent from it because \u2026 they just aren\u2019t competitive right now, even if it\u2019s by design.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">For the Mystics, Winger let then-General Manager Mike Thibault run the team without getting too much in the way in the 2023 and 2024 WNBA seasons. But ultimately, Winger let Thibault go to make his mark on the team. After a promising start in 2025 however, the Mystics traded their best veteran player, Brittney Sykes and they went on a 10-game losing streak to end the regular season. And furthermore, the Mystics have indicated that free agency isn\u2019t their top priority for 2026 when the next Collective Bargaining Agreement kicks in. In other words? The Mystics are going to use the Wizards\u2019 blueprint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">So that leads me to a question: Which team is further ahead with a rebuild? The Wizards or the Mystics? I\u2019m not sure. But here are arguments why the Wizards are ahead:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">But here is why the Mystics could be further ahead:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">So, I don\u2019t intend to compare teams here, but I\u2019ll ask the question. Which team is further ahead in its rebuild? The Wizards or Mystics? Let us know in the comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monumental Basketball President Michael Winger is the ultimate basketball decision maker for the Washington Wizards and Mystics. Since&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[163371,99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-318928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-quality-shots","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318928","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=318928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}