The Washington Mystics are 10-10 as of today, good for eighth in the 2026 WNBA regular season standings. They are 6-4 over their last 10 games, and have numerous signature wins. The team legitimately looks a team that wants to make the playoffs.
They are also the youngest team in the league, pay their players the least amount of money in the league (the players will get additional money to meet the salary floor). And that means that the front office would rather see the team tank the moment Sonia
Citron and/or Kiki Iriafen aren’t having a good day. Th
Less than a couple weeks ago, I wrote about the Mystics’ disparity in power rankings after they beat the Minnesota Lynx and New York Liberty as part of a three game win streak. While Michael Voepel of ESPN had them at No. 7, Sabreena Merchant of The Athletic had them at No. 9. Sure, it’s a difference of two spots in a 15 team league. But that difference is between a team that makes the playoffs and one that doesn’t if these were standings.
How is Washington doing in the current rankings?
Voepel has them at No. 7 again this week, which is about right considering that Washington has lost some games while also beating more .500+ teams like the Atlanta Dream, who were No. 8 in his rankings.
Now, how about Merchant? Her rankings have the Mystics at No. 7, up from No. 8 last week. And Merchant also wrote about why rookie guard Alicia Florez is her Rookie of the Week because of her improvement throughout the season. Here is the quote:
Flórez is one of the early success stories of the developmental player contracts in the new CBA. She didn’t make the original 12-player roster in Washington, but the 22-year-old impressed enough to earn a full roster spot within a month of signing, and she’s become increasingly relied upon as the Mystics have dealt with injuries to their starting backcourt of Sonia Citron and Georgia Amoore. Flórez was arguably Washington’s second-most important player in an upset win over Atlanta without Citron last week.
Flórez has great chemistry with her bigs. She worked well on give-and-gos with Shakira Austin and Kiki Iriafen and made the decisive plays in the fourth in the pick-and-roll with Iriafen. Flórez is also decisive in attacking the basket. She resembles Amoore from a distance (the ponytails and the fist pumps are similar), and she even dribbles the ball the same way, but Flórez has the size to make all the passes Amoore can’t and provides a necessary scoring threat from the perimeter, and Amoore mostly scores as a last resort. That’s especially helpful when Citron is out.
Our own Miles Jordan wrote a piece on Florez after her strong performances last week as well.
In short, the WNBA power rankings had to catch up a bit, but they’re not selling the Mystics short anymore. As for the front office and their strategy? That’s a different matter.
