With Eyes on the Future, the Mystics Are Launching a Youth Movement

The 18 players invited to Mystics camp include a 12 rookies, while another four players were rookies just last year.

Lauren Betts (left) was selected fourth by the Mystics in the 2026 draft, joining last year’s first-round picks Sonia Citron, Georgia Amoore and Kiki Iriafen. | Hannah Foslien/The Washington Post/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Darianna Littlepage-Buggs began her first WNBA training camp like any smart rookie would. She asked more experienced players for tips—hearing to slow down and take it all in and believe that she would figure it all out. This is the advice that veterans have been giving rookies as long as training camps have existed. Yet when the Mystics’ third-round pick relayed this to a room of reporters on media day earlier this week, there was a natural question that had to be asked next.  

Veterans on this roster? Which veterans? 

“Oh, I talked to all of them,” Littlepage-Buggs said. “I talked to Kiki and Georgia and Lucy especially.” 

Mystics players Kiki Iriafen, Georgia Amoore and Lucy Olsen were rookies themselves just last year, with Amoore still a rookie for statistical purposes, after spending last season recovering from a torn ACL. Iriafen and Olsen are just 22 years old—the same as Littlepage-Buggs. On any other roster, these players would likely still be considered youngsters themselves. Here? They might as well be veterans. 

Or, as put by another second-year player, Madison Scott: 

“We’re the young ones,” she said, “but also the old ones at the same time, on this team.”

That’s a result of a group that is remarkably green. 

Cotie McMahon was drafted 11th this year, and was the third first-round pick the Mystics had at the 2026 draft. | Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Washington entered training camp where the average WNBA experience is less than one season. While that number will surely look a bit different as cuts are made and the roster is finalized, it can only change so much. The 18 players invited to Mystics camp include an incredible 12 rookies—enough to fill an entire roster themselves. The remaining six include four players who had been rookies just last year. (Iriafen, Olsen and Scott are joined in that group by crafty guard Sonia Citron.) That leaves only two players with more than one season of experience in the WNBA: Shakira Austin and Michaela Onyenwere, both comfortably established in the league but hardly grizzled veterans, with four and five years in the WNBA, respectively.   

“I’m one of the oldest ones, which is freaking crazy,” Onyenwere said. “I’m only 26!... Being a leader, in that way, it’ll be super important for me to grow in that area.” 

All of this youth is a product of a franchise that has spent the last few years stockpiling draft picks as it positions itself for a long-term, big-picture overhaul. The 2026 WNBA draft marked the second consecutive year in which the Mystics had three first-round picks. (Citron, Iriafen and Amoore made up those selections in ’25; Lauren Betts, Angela Dugalic and Cotie McMahon followed in ’26.) Washington has finished building up its supply of young talent. It now turns its focus to the tricky work of developing more or less an entire roster at the same time.

The early returns were promising last year. Citron and Iriafen became the first pair of rookie teammates to be named All-Stars since 1999. Amoore’s injury kept her sidelined and put her through a grueling rehab process, but it gave her a full year to study up on tendencies, schemes and pro habits that she will now tap into as the presumptive starting point guard. But they got their start on a roster with several key veteran players who have since departed. Now, a year later, they’ll be expected to fill some of that space themselves. 

“Sonia and Kiki and Georgia, in particular, they’re growing up right in front of our eyes,” Mystics coach Sydney Johnson said. “That doesn’t equate to a 10-year vet, but it equates to something. I’m already turning to them and leaning on them for leadership in ways—small and big ways—that I couldn’t last year.” 

And for the rookies, there’s a sense that perhaps no situation could be more promising. Washington offers them more roster spots, more potential minutes and more youthful camaraderie than any other team in the WNBA. 

“It’s just been really fun. I mean, I feel like we’ve just finished the season, and I played all these girls, so I feel like we have so much to talk about,” said Betts, fresh off a national title at UCLA and the Mystics’ top draft pick this year at No. 4. “We’re all transitioning to this at the same time. So it’s just really special to kind of have that connection.” 

The Mystics held a team dinner out in Georgetown right before the start of training camp. It did not take long for this group of newcomers to realize how much they had in common. Most of them played with or against each other in college—no more than a year or two ago for the majority of them. Even some of the players who are a bit older are still just as new to the league as their more recently drafted counterparts. (The list of training camp invitees has several players with years of experience overseas but none in the WNBA.) On any other roster, they might individually be labeled as the rookie or the youngster or the one player trying to break through.

But there’s no use in that here. Nothing about that stands out this season in D.C. Those conditions fill nearly the whole roster instead.  

“You have to sort of break the ice, but once that happened, we were just yapping… There was no awkward silence,” said Dugalic, whom the Mystics selected at No. 9. “We were talking about each other’s lives, our college experiences, everything that you could possibly talk about. And it was really nice, because I think we all have the same mentality of—we’re obviously trying to make the team, and, you know, that stands. But at the same time, we can make this process enjoyable.”

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