The Washington Mystics got off to a great start to the season, defeating the hyped-up New York Liberty 80-64 in D.C. They had been receiving some second-place votes in media power rankings even before that, and that win seem to legitimize those votes. People started to think, as perhaps they did again Thursday night when the Sparks jumped out to an early lead over the Aces, that maybe the WNBA is already more than a two-team race.
People probably haven’t started to consider the Sparks a contender; I’m merely saying that they made the Aces look vulnerable. But Mystics fans probably got very hopeful about their team’s title chances after they beat New York, because the Mystics could very well be that team. They have Elena Delle Donne, who came in third on our Top 30 player list and Ariel Atkins, who came in 18th. Plus, they have a bunch of underrated players in Natasha Cloud, Brittney Sykes, Shakira Austin and Myisha Hines-Allen.
It is still early though. The Mystics came back down to Earth in their next two games, both losses to the Connecticut Sun. They just couldn’t slow down Alyssa Thomas and fell to a fellow elite team.
Now the question is if the Mystics can bounce back and start to string together some wins under first-year head coach Eric Thibault. Thibault…
