The transcontinental stretch of games that closed out the first half of the Washington Mystics’ 2026 season could best be described as Odyssean: six contests across 11 days, half of them against the top tier of WNBA opponents, and requiring four flights and nearly 6,500 air miles to navigate before they finally reached home. Along the way, the league’s youngest team faced nearly everything short of cyclopses, cannibals and sirens.
What to make, then, of head coach Sydney Johnson revealing late Wednesday that the top item on his All-Star break bucket list — apart from family time, a little film work and some couch-side viewing of Saturday night’s WNBA All-Star Game — is to take in the new epic remake of “The Odyssey” with his wife?
“I just really want to see that movie,” Johnson shrugged, with something short of Homeric grandeur.
Truth is, he doesn’t need to see it. He just lived it.
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By the time the Mystics had slain the last beast on their own odyssey — taking down the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, 100-99, at home Wednesday night to complete that grueling, six-game stretch with a 4-2 record — it was the rest of the WNBA that was collectively waking up to a realization:
The Mystics are officially a problem.
Despite having the second-youngest roster in league history, they arrive at the All-Star break, and on the cusp of the Aug. 2 trade deadline, with a 14-12 record, far above most preseason predictions and good for the eighth and final playoff spot if the season ended today. Even more impressive is the way they closed out the first half: with back-to-back wins at Golden State and at home against Las Vegas — the No. 2 and No. 3 teams in the W, respectively — in a 72-hour stretch, with a cross-country flight in between.
“They’re very long. They’re athletic. They’re well-coached. I’m not surprised they’re sitting where they’re sitting,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said of the Mystics. “They don’t go away. They hang around in games, which always gives you a chance to win. There is a skillset in winning together, and even though this team is young they’re proving that they’re developing [the ability] to win tough games down the stretch.
“Their length and their physicality and athleticism are [elite]. I don’t think too many teams in this league can deal with that.”
On Wednesday night, the Mystics pummeled Hammon’s Aces inside and out. Washington’s three bigs — 6-foot-3 Kiki Iriafen, 6-foot-5 Shakira Austin and 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts — combined for 50 points and 19 rebounds, more than making up for the 38 and seven they conceded to Aces legend A’ja Wilson. Meantime, guard Sonia Citron poured in 20 points (along with eight assists), with 11 of them coming in the decisive fourth quarter, when Citron, who typically plays off the ball, shifted to point guard and the Mystics stormed back from nine points down in the final four minutes.
The victory over the Aces made the Mystics the only team this season with wins over all three of the league’s top teams: Minnesota, Golden State and Las Vegas. Regardless of where they finish in the standings, they have become that team no one would want to face in the playoffs.
“We don’t make it a secret: We want to make the playoffs. We want to make a push,” said point guard Georgia Amoore, who scored 10 on Wednesday. “We’re not that team that other teams can relax against, or take a night off against. We’ve proven that.”
The next stop for Iriafen, Citron and Austin is Chicago, where Iriafen and Citron — the first WNBA teammates in 27 years to earn All-Star berths in each of their first two seasons — will be on opposite squads for the game itself, while Austin, a notable snub in All-Star selections, will participate in Friday night’s Shooting Stars competition.
The Mystics’ sooner-than-expected arrival as a playoff threat and their enviable collection of young talent — the 25-year-old Austin and 26-year-old forward Michaela Onyenwere are the only players on the roster with more than one and a half years of WNBA experience — has both given them the appearance of a nascent juggernaut and also made them an intriguing factor ahead of next month’s trade deadline.
Up to now, the Mystics have been pointed decidedly and aggressively in the direction of rebuilding, hoarding draft picks and emphasizing player development. A year ago at the trade deadline, sitting on a 13-15 record, they dealt away veteran guard and three-time All-Star Brittney Sykes, then finished the season on a 3-12 skid.
Might Washington take the opposite approach this summer, and perhaps spend some of its remaining draft capital and young talent on a veteran or two — in effect stopping the rebuild and turning this into a go-for-it year?
Among the team’s needs: a veteran point guard (the assortment of point guards on their roster have amassed -0.2 win shares this season) and/or a deadly three-point shooter (they rank next-to-last in the league in three-point attempts, makes and shooting percentage). Among the available targets: 35-year-old veteran and seven-time All-Star Skylar Diggins, whom the Chicago Sky may be shopping.
But the likelier play for the Mystics would be to stand pat at the deadline, let the season play out and make their next push this offseason via free agency and/or the draft. They already own Chicago’s first-round pick in 2027, which is likely to be high. That means the Mystics could have their choice of a game-changing talent like USC’s JuJu Watkins, Texas’ Madison Booker or Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo.
The Mystics have been operating without a general manager since parting ways with Jamila Wideman in April, meaning Johnson and Michael Winger, president of basketball operations for Monumental Basketball, will be making the big calls on the Mystics’ direction and philosophy. On Wednesday, Johnson deflected a question about the team’s trade deadline strategy.
“Every player on our roster has gotten better. Every single one of them. And that has allowed us as a team to get better. And we’ll lift our heads up in August and just kind of see where we are,” Johnson said. “What we talked about at the start of the season, in terms of having a young group that was eager to get better, to grow individually and as a team — so far, so good. We’re on track in terms of taking a step forward. But the [2026] journey is only a little more than halfway through.”
Once they return from the All-Star break, the Mystics face a gauntlet of a schedule in the first half of August, including back-to-backs against both Dallas (currently fourth in the standings) and Las Vegas (currently third). There is also another stretch of six games in 11 days featuring another pair of cross-country flights.
Which means before Johnson and the Mystics can look too far down the road, he still has one Odyssey to face at the cinema and another on the basketball court.
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