After their season came to a quiet, unsatisfying end in the first round of the playoffs Wednesday night, the Mystics lingered in the locker room.
They had gone through all of their usual postgame tasks. Head coach Sydney Johnson told them to be proud of what they had accomplished this year. They fulfilled their media obligations and showered and changed. It was soon time for the players to leave the building.
But they were not quite ready to leave each other.
So they kept the night going. Point guard Georgia Amoore volunteered her place. If this was the final day of the season for the 2026 Mystics, they would make tomorrow wait as long as it possibly could. The group all piled into Amoore’s apartment. They spent the next few hours there.
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“Just a last hoorah,” forward Kiki Iriafen said. “We just hung out and talked and reminisced on the season.”
This historically young roster grew extremely close over the course of the season. Many teams speak about togetherness and love and sisterhood. Few use the aftermath of a tough playoff loss for a bittersweet last shot at a late-night hangout session. The players discussed the game they had just played, of course, because it was hard to talk about anything else at first. (The No. 4 Dream had swept the No. 5 Mystics with a pair of bruising losses.) But they soon found themselves discussing far more.
“It was really fun,” Amoore said. “First of all, let’s digest this game. But then, you know when you just get delirious, and everything’s funny, and you reflect on the randomest moments?... It was just a cute little kumbaya, to be like, Yo, let’s just let it all out.”
There is considerable focus on the future around here. Washington has a strong, young core, with a guaranteed lottery pick in the upcoming draft and plenty of salary cap space, too. This playoff loss is supposed to be only the beginning for this group. Everyone from national analysts to their own coaching staff has talked about this week as the start of something much bigger for this franchise.
But it was still an ending.
“We just have such a close group, and I feel like we really all love each other so much and love playing with each other. It was rough, just thinking, you know, Who knows what the team will look like next year?” said rookie center Lauren Betts. “It was just wanting to have one more moment with the same girls. It was such a nice little goodbye for all of us.”
Chances are high that many of those players will still be here when training camp rolls around in April. The Mystics’ only unrestricted free agent is veteran Betnijah Laney-Hamilton; a dramatic roster shakeup is unlikely. This core is expected to stay in place. But they hope they will be slightly different versions of themselves when they return to D.C.
Amoore will play this offseason in her native Australia. Much of this year was spent mentally grappling with the continued recovery from a torn ACL: Even though she had been cleared to get back on the floor months ago, she did not feel completely herself physically until fairly recently, she said. Her last offseason focused on making a return to play. This offseason will be focused on making what she calls a “Return to G.”
“I’ll have a lot of time to practice, to individually work out,” she said. “To get back to that Georgia Amoore that I’m familiar with.”
Iriafen has no plans to play elsewhere but has big plans for training and recovery: “I know that there’s another level that I can tap into and become an even better player.” Betts will play in Turkey.
Two of the Mystics’ biggest talents, Sonia Citron and Shakira Austin, will play in the Miami-based three-on-three league Unrivaled that attracts many WNBA players.
“I want to use Unrivaled to get better as a player,” said Citron, who has been an All-Star in both of her seasons with the Mystics. “Unrivaled is a great atmosphere for that. … The three-on-three setting, I think, is just really a great place to get better individually.”
Yet before they scattered for all of that offseason work, they shared the final hours of their season together. They will remember the loss. But they will remember what they did afterward, too.
“It’s having moments like that,” Amoore said. “Going into the offseason, that’s what you remember.”
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