The Mystics did not win the lottery, but they could still end up with prizes at the fourth and sixth picks.
The Mystics didn’t win the WNBA lottery. They were a long shot to win and failed to move up from the fourth selection. Lady Luck favored the Dallas Wings, who moved up in the draft lottery for the third time in three tries. Washington could have had much better odds if the team had not won eight of their last 12 games last season, but they still own the fourth and sixth picks in the draft.
The 2025 WNBA Draft does have a clear #1 pick in Paige Bueckers, who will go to Dallas unless something unexpected happens. Beyond her, this year’s group of potential draftees doesn’t quite match the 2024 class’s potential. Bueckers cannot match the fervor around Caitlin Clark last year. The top seven selections in 2024 had better resumes than any 2025 prospect outside of Bueckers at this point last season.
However, the class features plenty of potential impact players. Let’s use Across The Timeline’s Mock Draft aggregator to see who the Mystics may take with the 4th and 6th picks in the first round. The aggregator features nine mocks from writers at big publications like Sabreena Merchant of The Athletic and Michael Voepel of ESPN and from indie or niche sites. There’s a good mix of opinions and perspectives that give us a big field. Bueckers is the unanimous #1 and Kiki Iriafen of USC went second in eight of the nine mock drafts. Here are the players projected to go to the Mystics in more than one mock:
Azzi Fudd, Connecticut
Fudd arrived at UConn with almost as much hype as Bueckers. The NoVa native won Gatorade Girls Basketball Player of the Year after her sophomore season at St. John’s College High School, beating out Bueckers. She’s very strong at 5’11” and can do everything you’d need from a shooting guard. Her calling card has always been shooting, especially after shooting 43% on 135 deep attempts as a freshman. However, Fudd’s health is a major question mark. Before her junior year at high school, she tore her ACL and MCL in her right knee. The same knee caused her to miss 22 games in her second season at UConn. Unfortunately, she tore her right ACL again about one year ago and is just now returning to the Huskies.
Olivia Miles, Notre Dame
Miles is the biggest wildcard in the draft. First off, she can return to Notre Dame for another season and may achieve enough stardom to make staying in college attractive. She is also coming off a knee injury that forced her to miss the 2022-23 postseason and the entire 2023-24 season. But, if she’s healthy, Miles would be the second player on my hypothetical draft board. She led the ACC and ranked top 10 nationally in assists per game during her first two seasons. Miles relied on her ability to get to the paint to generate points before her injury, in part due to her poor outside shooting. Miles is 13-of-24 (52.4%) from deep in 2024, a far cry from the 25.4% she shot from deep in her two seasons. Even if her shooting isn’t that good, Miles is almost as unique and potentially franchise-changing as any player in this draft.
Sonia Citron, Notre Dame
Five of the nine mock drafts project Citron getting drafted by the Mystics, which makes me so happy. She is not likely to become a WNBA superstar, but she may have the highest floor of any prospect and can fit into many different roles. In her career at Notre Dame, she has increased her scoring output every season and typically guards the opponent’s best player. Citron put up 15.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game with a solid eFG of 53.5% in the last two seasons. Her three-point shooting is also exciting as she hit 37.9% of her 4.2 shooting attempts in the same time frame. The question mark for Citron is her ceiling and how she’ll look without a very good point guard, which she has had every year at Notre Dame.
Other players that the Mystics selected in mock drafts multiple times are Aneesah Morrow from LSU, Dominique Malonga of France, and Ajša Sivka of Slovenia. I didn’t write up previews of these three prospects because I believe Morrow is unlikely to go in the top 6 of the draft and, frankly, I don’t know enough about the international prospects. We will go through this exercise again as the mock drafts get updated.