Quick Facts
Date:
1998 - present
Headquarters:
Washington, D.C.
Areas Of Involvement:
basketball
Related People:
Chamique Holdsclaw

Washington Mystics, American professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C., that plays in the Eastern Conference of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team has won one WNBA championship (2019).

The Mystics began play as an expansion team in 1998, one year after the WNBA made its debut as a league. The name Mystics evoked the team’s counterpart in the National Basketball Association, the Washington Wizards. (Both franchises were owned by businessman Abe Pollin.) In the Mystics’ first season, the team compiled a league-worst 3–27 record. With the first overall pick in the 1999 draft, however, the Mystics selected University of Tennessee forward Chamique Holdsclaw, the Naismith College Player of the Year in 1998 and 1999. Holdsclaw had an immediate positive impact on the Mystics, helping the team improve its record over the next two seasons and earn its first playoff berth, in 2000. In 2002 the Mystics advanced to the Eastern Conference finals, where they were defeated by the New York Liberty.

In 2005 Pollin sold the Mystics to an ownership group that included Sheila C. Johnson, a cofounder of the cable television network Black Entertainment Television (BET). Johnson was the first Black woman to become an owner of a WNBA team. In 2006 the team went 18–16 and reached the Eastern Conference semifinals before losing to the Connecticut Sun. Despite posting a losing record (16–18) in 2009, the Mystics returned to the Eastern Conference semifinals that year behind the stellar play of forward-centre Crystal Langhorne, but the team was eliminated by the Indiana Fever. The following year the Mystics improved to 22–12, tying the Liberty for best record in the Eastern Conference. Again, however, they were stopped in the conference semifinals, losing to the Atlanta Dream.

Serena Williams poses with the Daphne Akhurst Trophy after winning the Women's Singles final against Venus Williams of the United States on day 13 of the 2017 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 28, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (tennis, sports)
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Mike Thibault was hired as head coach of the Mystics in 2013. Over the next seven seasons, the team missed the playoffs only once, in 2016. Ahead of the 2017 season, the Mystics acquired 6-foot, 5-inch (1.96-metre) forward-guard Elena Delle Donne, winner of the league’s 2015 Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. In 2018 Delle Donne led the Mystics to the WNBA finals, where the team was swept by the Seattle Storm in three games. In 2019, however, the Mystics topped the league with a 26–8 record and captured their first championship, defeating the Sun three games to two in the finals. Delle Donne opted to sit out the 2020 season (shortened to 22 games because of the COVID-19 pandemic), and the Mystics went 9–13 before a loss in the first round of the playoffs. The Mystics missed the playoffs in 2021, but, after a 22–14 season in 2022, they returned, only to lose to the Storm in the first round.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.
Quick Facts
Date:
1997 - present
Areas Of Involvement:
basketball
professionalism

Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), American women’s professional basketball league that began play in 1997.

(Read James Naismith’s 1929 Britannica essay on his invention of basketball.)

The WNBA was created by the National Basketball Association (NBA) Board of Governors as a women’s analogue to the NBA. Each of the first eight WNBA franchises was located in a city that was also home to an NBA team, often with nicknames and uniform colours that were evocative of their men’s counterparts. The NBA owned each of the franchises until 2002, when it began allowing the sale of franchises to ownership groups in cities that did not have NBA teams and to groups in NBA cities that were unaffiliated with those NBA teams.

Serena Williams poses with the Daphne Akhurst Trophy after winning the Women's Singles final against Venus Williams of the United States on day 13 of the 2017 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 28, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (tennis, sports)
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The first four WNBA titles were won by the Houston Comets, with teams that featured two of the league’s first superstars in Cynthia Cooper and Sheryl Swoopes. Helped by the dissolution of the rival American Basketball League in 1999, the WNBA grew in the early years of the 21st century to become the most successful American women’s professional sports league ever, helped along by the popularity of outstanding players such as Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Lauren Jackson.

The WNBA is divided into two divisions that each consist of six teams and are aligned as follows:

Winners of the WNBA championship are provided in the table.

Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) Championship*
year winner runner-up results
*Best-of-three final series until 2005; thereafter best-of-five series.
1997 Houston Comets New York Liberty 1–0
1998 Houston Comets Phoenix Mercury 2–1
1999 Houston Comets New York Liberty 2–1
2000 Houston Comets New York Liberty 2–0
2001 Los Angeles Sparks Charlotte Sting 2–0
2002 Los Angeles Sparks New York Liberty 2–0
2003 Detroit Shock Los Angeles Sparks 2–1
2004 Seattle Storm Connecticut Sun 2–1
2005 Sacramento Monarchs Connecticut Sun 3–1
2006 Detroit Shock Sacramento Monarchs 3–2
2007 Phoenix Mercury Detroit Shock 3–2
2008 Detroit Shock San Antonio Silver Stars 3–0
2009 Phoenix Mercury Indiana Fever 3–2
2010 Seattle Storm Atlanta Dream 3–0
2011 Minnesota Lynx Atlanta Dream 3–0
2012 Indiana Fever Minnesota Lynx 3–1
2013 Minnesota Lynx Atlanta Dream 3–0
2014 Phoenix Mercury Chicago Sky 3–0
2015 Minnesota Lynx Indiana Fever 3–2
2016 Los Angeles Sparks Minnesota Lynx 3–2
2017 Minnesota Lynx Los Angeles Sparks 3–2
2018 Seattle Storm Washington Mystics 3–0
2019 Washington Mystics Connecticut Sun 3–2
2020 Seattle Storm Las Vegas Aces 3–0
2021 Chicago Sky Phoenix Mercury 3–1
2022 Las Vegas Aces Connecticut Sun 3–1
2023 Las Vegas Aces New York Liberty 3–1
2024 New York Liberty Minnesota Lynx 3–2
Adam Augustyn