WASHINGTON D.C. -- AT any given moment with the Washington Mystics, a dance party can break out. Rookies Lauren Betts and Cotie McMahon instantly start to rock when Tyler, The Creator's "Sticky" plays at practice, mouthing the lyrics as they stand on the sideline.
The next day at shootaround, it's Betts and assistant coach Barb Turner shaking to Blac Youngsta's "Booty." Kiki Iriafen, McMahon and Georgia Amoore join in when "Super Gremlin" by Kodak Black comes on. Even coach Sydney Johnson will break out his own ... unique moves after victories.
It's all fun and games the late August day before the Mystics take on the Toronto Tempo -- until someone blows a defensive assignment in practice. That's when the bass comes out of the typically mild-mannered Johnson's voice, who laments that Marina Mabrey will hit that open jumper every time.
Things have drastically changed in the past 23 months for the youthful Mystics, playoff-bound for the first time since 2023. With six first-round picks from the past two drafts and a sprinkle of veteran leadership, the lightning-quick franchise rebuild has created a playful-yet-serious vibe that just seems to fit this particularly constructed roster. There's even the nickname that would be considered derogatory if they didn't give it to themselves (think of a garden tool that rhymes with rose).
"Young h-s, we are fun," McMahon said, barely containing her laugh. "Don't take anything serious unless we're on the court. This is an amazing group of girls. This is honestly like daycare, you know. We come here for the day, work out, have fun. Then we go back home and it's like, oh, so boring.
"The coaches had to adjust to us. They had to figure out how to deal with us and how to handle us. Some of the things we say, they can't do anything but laugh."
Shakira Austin, an elder stateswoman at 26, added, "Them girls, they crazy."
The girls might be crazy, but they've already become the youngest playoff team in WNBA history just two years into a rebuild that began before the 2025 season. Mike Thibault, at the time the winningest coach in league history, was fired as general manager and his son Eric was let go as coach. The two had been with the organization since 2013 -- Mike was coach for 10 seasons before being followed by Eric -- advancing to the 2018 Finals and winning the title in 2019.
Four years later, former Los Angeles Clippers GM Michael Winger was hired as the president of Monumental Basketball, which owns the Washington Wizards and Mystics. He was fairly hands-off in 2023 and 2024, primarily focused on the Wizards. That changed in 2025. The Thibaults were let go, and the proverbial house was cleaned. Austin and head of domestic scouting Shelley Patterson are, essentially, the only two remaining from the previous regime. Jamila Wideman was hired as the new GM and lasted all of one season.
As the reorganization took place on and off the court, one thing emerged: Winger would be the ultimate decision-maker, even when Wideman was on staff. The draft-and-develop strategy first employed by the Wizards was eventually tailored to fit the Mystics. But while the Wizards had the worst three-year stretch in franchise history, the Mystics' youngsters have had an immediate impact on winning.
Six first-round draft picks in the last two years produced youthful depth: a pair of All-Stars in Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen, both in their sophomore season; a rookie starting point guard in two-time all-American Georgia Amoore (she missed the 2025 season with an ACL injury). Betts, the two-time all-American and 2026 NCAA tournament Final Four Most Outstanding Player, comes off the bench. Angela Dugalic and Cotie McMahon were also first-round selections in May.
"It's not fun if everybody around you isn't having fun," Iriafen said. "Honestly, some days it feels like we're in college again. Like, we come into practice and we hang out in the locker room. Then we're like, let's go get matcha. Or on the road, we're like, oh, who wants to come to the movies with me?
"So we definitely have a chemistry off the court that has just bled into on the court."
THIS SEASON'S ROSTER almost looked very different.
Austin, the 2022 No. 3 overall pick, could have been somewhere else entirely. She signed a three-year deal worth $3.57 million offer sheet with the Toronto Tempo in free agency and was prepared to head north to the expansion franchise. Sources in Washington claim that never was going to happen -- she was a restricted free agent, and the Mystics were ready to match any offer -- but Austin, the only player remaining from the previous regime, was considering her options.
First, though, she wanted to have a conversation with Johnson. For all of 2024, the team's record was essentially an afterthought; the new coach wanted to focus on building a cultural foundation. Johnson emphasized he wanted the team to play with "joy" more than anything else -- so often that it became a running joke, as the coach would work "joy" into nearly every conversation ad nauseum.
Austin understood the rebuild ahead, but heading into her fifth season, she wanted to play for more than just joy and felt that Johnson was being a bit "timid" in Year 1.
"Do you want to just be okay with being okay, or do you want to go out there and see what the [expletive] we can do?" Austin said. "I'm just too competitive to allow us to settle, in a sense. I really had to talk with Coach.
"If they were to bring me back, I just truly wanted to be like, okay, we have enough players that we can be better than last year and we can still strive for success."
Austin wasn't alone with those feelings. Citron and Iriafen wanted more, too.
And while Johnson and the team have embraced his good-natured "girl dad" persona, they also didn't want to compete for a participation trophy. This season, the fiery side of Johnson began to appear more often. In a 32-point loss to the Atlanta Dream in early June, he had to be escorted off the court by three police officers after being ejected. Team security, three assistant coaches and Iriafen all failed to corral Johnson as he unleashed fury.
"It was really important to go into Year 2 withholding that we're going to have our joy, but we're also going to be competitive and ruthless in competition and merge those two," Johnson said. "Positive competitiveness is how I phrase it. It doesn't have to be like s---ty, crappy behavior in the sake of winning. 'The end justifies the means?' I don't believe in that.
"When our players -- Kira and Kiki and Sonia, especially -- were like, Coach, you can push us more -- all right, now we're off and running."
With their stars on board, the front office was selective about what veterans to bring in as it looked to construct the roster this offseason. They didn't want to stunt the growth of the youngsters, but if they were going to shoot for the playoffs, some experience was necessary. Michaela Onyenwere, 27, spent 2025 in Chicago, where Johnson was an assistant, so there was already a relationship and knowledge about the type of example she would be.
The organization was wary about the same things at the trade deadline and declined to make a move. But when the New York Liberty waived Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, who never found a consistent role under new coach Chris DeMarco, the Mystics pounced. The one-time All-Star, two-time all-defense selection, 2020 Most Improved Player and 2024 champion was Onyenwere's veteran when she entered the league as a rookie in New York. Onyenwere said she would be a perfect fit.
Laney-Hamilton proved that immediately. Before even being made active, she was leaning into huddles midgame and making her voice heard. Then games and a cookout were held at her home in Vegas during a road trip to face the Aces.
"What's really unique is just the energy in the environment," Laney-Hamilton said. "The environment that's been created, just the culture of the team, has been really great.
"It's just like this newfound energy. I feel like just a weight off my shoulders to just be somewhere different, be somewhere just being embraced and all the things."
THE PRACTICE SIDE of CareFirst Arena -- the building that serves as the Mystics' and G-League Capital City Go-Go's home arena and the practice facility for both teams and the Wizards -- features two full-length courts and six baskets. Center court on one side features the Wizards logo; the Mystics crest is on the other. Championship banners for both franchises are mounted against the far wall; panels above the court mimic the red and white Washington D.C. flag.
Before every Mystics practice comes individual work for each player, who is matched up with her own specific coach. On this day, Citron dribbles a basketball with one hand while dribbling a tennis ball in the other. She and assistant coach Clinton Crouch, with his trademark hoodie pulled up over his head, go through a variety of drills. Iriafen and assistant coach Barb Turner, the leading dancer among the staff, focus on footwork in the post.
Individual work with assistant coaches isn't unique, but it is a daily part of Monumental's development program. Another cornerstone has become what they call "decimal meetings." Approximately once each quarter, every player has a group session with the head coach, performance coach and representatives from the medical staff, executive staff, research & development, analytics, mental health and physical therapy. The goal is to use data to focus on each player's individual growth. They specifically track a variety of data points in and out of games to set goals on where and how to improve, then measure how that's coming along.
Iriafen, for example, wasn't happy with her progress earlier in the season, but the meetings proved that she was ahead of 2025.
"I'm just like an analytical nerd," she explained. "So, to see the numbers, I'm like, OK, maybe the eye test [felt] like this, but the numbers show you're trending in the right directions.
"Decimals have been really helpful to just have the facts in front of you. There's so many ways you can have your emotions play into things, but the facts don't lie."
The Mystics just implemented the decimal system this season, adapted from a version that the Wizards have used in previous seasons. That ended up being an advantage for the Mystics, after the structure went through trial and error with the men. Certain things worked; others didn't. Some of the metrics were evaluated and their importance adjusted.
There's a hesitancy to say the Mystics are simply mimicking the system applied by the Wizards, but there are core philosophical beliefs and standards that Winger and his staff consider vital to building successful basketball teams, so there is some crossover. On the Mystics' side, the rebuild has been quicker and the depths of the losing nowhere near as low.
"You have two franchises in the same building and a lot of the resources are shared resources," said John Thompson III, the senior vice president of Monumental Basketball. "That relates to actual physical space as well as the mental resources and capacity of the people in the building. Without a doubt, learning, watching, growing as the Wizards have gone through their version of the decimals, it made it much easier to transfer over and know exactly what we wanted to accomplish and how we wanted to accomplish and go about our player development."
The results on the court have been impressive, with the biggest difference on the defensive end. The Mystics are currently No. 3 in the league in defensive rating and No. 2 in points allowed. Last season they were ninth in both. A healthy Austin is the anchor, currently the No. 1 player in the league defending shots in the restricted area, according to Second Spectrum. Citron has grown into one of the top perimeter defenders as she guarded more shots against 2026 All-Stars than any other perimeter player in the league, according to Second Spectrum. The front office also specifically targeted bigger, stronger, more athletic players during the offseason to help things on the defensive end of the floor.
Offensively, Washington ranks No. 13 in the league (82.8 points per game), but it has beaten every playoff team at least once this season thanks to a physical, stifling defense.
"We want to be someone known for being just a team you don't want to go up against," Citron said. "Togetherness and toughness, that's our two pillars for what we want to be known as a team."
THE DANCE PARTIES might break out at any time on this team, but only one person shuts them down. Like with many teams in the league, the Mystics social media team records everyone heading to the locker room after victories. Turner is usually first in the tunnel with a side-to-side bop. But it's Johnson that goes viral. Once it was an all-out belly flop onto the locker room floor. There was a leaping fist pump with a landing on his knees. Once he stormed in making a windmill with his arms before a shake of his rear end. There was a spin with a Michael Jackson kick. He even once sprinted in with a bag of balls for a mock game of dodgeball. A side-to-side, hands-up motion with Amoore felt like an inside joke that is difficult to describe.
"He is a dad coach," Iriafen said. "He gets, in the most respectful, loving way, cringier every time. We are his kids' age, so I think it's really cool for him to like go home and be with his kids and then come to work and have like 15 daughters."
Austin added, "He does it to be goofy with the girls, and they think it's cringe half the time, but everybody loves it."
This is the balance that Johnson works to achieve. Until Laney-Hamilton was added, the Mystics were the youngest team in the league. There's an energy that comes with a roster that is barely able to legally drink alcohol. And Johnson has adapted.
"I'm just trying to fit in with this crew," Johnson said. "Why are we doing this if we can't celebrate gains, daily gains and then big moments?
"If we can't enjoy that, then it's wasted to me. So, when I see their youthful exuberance and I see them dancing or dubs in the chat or phrasing how they call themselves -- which I'm not gonna call them -- it rubs off. It's almost like they're giving me a license to join in."
That's where this Mystics team lives -- a balance between a young silliness and a seriousness on the court. Somehow, that has turned into a playoff team that's well ahead of schedule. And the party is never far away.