As the post-game celebration of the Washington Mystics’s 2019 WNBA Championship wound down, I stuffed a bunch of red, white, and blue confetti into my laptop bag. The silliness of excitedly grabbing literal trash was not lost on me. But as I write this article, I’m looking at a little plastic bag full of those paper scraps and feel the rush from the final moments of the WNBA season. The Washington Mystics won the freaking WNBA title and somehow, that bag of trash brings back that feeling. Sports are weird, but also perfect sometimes.
The Mystics’ first title was a perfect capper to this group’s rise to the top. Head Coach Mike Thibault finally got a ring after so many near-misses. WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne overcame THREE HERNIATED DISKS to solidify her case for best player on the planet. The team was determined for greatness this season and they accomplished greatness.
Beautiful Basketball
Here’s an incomplete list of offensive statistical categories which the Mystics led the league in for the regular season: *DEEEEEP BREATH* Points per game, Offensive Rating, Net Rating, Field Goal %, Free Throw %, EFG%, True Shooting %, Assists per game, Turnovers per game , Assist-to-turnover ratio, Turnover %, Three-point attempts per game, Three-point makes per game.
Again, there are more categories in which this team dominated. But even these amazing stats cannot fully express the greatness of this offense. The Mystics played beautifully. They moved the ball unselfishly and (almost) always hit the open shot. I asked Elena Delle Donne if this was the best offense she has ever played earlier in the season.
“By far, nothing even comes close,” the 2019 WNBA MVP answered without hesitation. “When you get to play beautiful, unselfish basketball where nobody cares about their statistics. Nobody cares if they’re getting the shots, or they’re getting the looks. It’s all about who is open, who is hitting, who we can flow through. It’s just fun basketball.”
Gabe Ibrahim 