Lately, the Washington Mystics coaching staff has challenged rookie forward Kiki Iriafen, the team’s leading rebounder at 8.2 per game, to crash the offensive glass even harder.
Iriafen did that with under five seconds left against the Minnesota Lynx on Friday, even though time was running out on the Mystics in an 80-76 loss. She got inside position on her defender while a 3-pointer was in the air. Then Iriafen outraced the defender and another Lynx player for her third offensive rebound of the night.
That was also Iriafen’s ninth rebound of the game and 247th of the season, moving her past Mystics Hall of Famer Chamique Holdsclaw for the most rebounds in a season by a rookie in franchise history. In 1999, Holdsclaw got 246 rebounds in 31 games and about 1,065 total minutes; Iriafen reached 247 in 30 games and just over 793 minutes.
“It’s definitely an honor to have broken a record of someone as legendary as her,” Iriafen told reporters postgame. “I didn’t even know I did it until like 30 seconds ago.”
Iriafen was well ahead of Holdsclaw’s pace early in the season, as she notched four double-doubles in her first five games and was named WNBA Rookie of the Month for May. She then dipped under Holdsclaw’s pace for a few games and has been mostly neck-and-neck with her since. Iriafen’s pace has also consistently exceeded that of the two other Mystics who had at least 200 rebounds as rookies: Shakira Austin in 2022 (232 in 36 regular-season games) and Murriel Page in 1998 (208 in 30 games).
This season, the 6’3 Iriafen ranks fourth among all WNBA players — not just rookies — in total rebounds. She is grabbing 18.8% of all available rebounds when she’s on the court, which ranks third in the league.
Beyond her rebounding, Iriafen is averaging 12.1 points on 48.1% shooting and 1.5 assists in 26.4 minutes per game. She has started all 30 games, joining fellow rookie Sonia Citron as the only Mystics to do so this season. She and Citron were also the first Mystics rookies since Holdsclaw to be named WNBA All-Stars.
“I’m just not sure there’s anything that we’ve asked [Iriafen] to do that she hasn’t just poured herself into,” Mystics head coach Sydney Johnson told reporters after Friday’s game.
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Amid all that Iriafen does, though, rebounding is a bedrock for her.
“I feel like rebounding is my thing,” she said, “something I can be really consistent at.”
She started focusing heavily on rebounding in high school, she told The Next on July 29, because she realized her effort on the boards was one of the few things she could control in a basketball game. She credits her success in that area to her “relentlessness,” which is also a word that several opponents have used to describe her this season.
“She’s just fierce, and her motor never stops,” Connecticut Sun rookie center/forward Rayah Marshall, who was also Iriafen’s teammate at USC in 2024-25, told The Next on July 28. “So it’s kind of hard to defend that. You can’t box her out every rebound when she’s crashing every single time. You can’t even put that on a scouting report.”
“She’s rebounding it like her life depends on it,” Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase told reporters on July 31.
Iriafen has had at least 10 rebounds in 10 games this season, which is almost as many times as every other rookie combined (13). She had a career-high 14 rebounds in just her second WNBA game, against the Sun on May 18.
She has had multiple offensive rebounds in 24 of 30 games, with her career high of six coming against the New York Liberty on June 5.
Just like scoring or point guard play, there are different styles of rebounding. Some rebounders rely on their strength, Iriafen said; others use their height, athleticism or IQ. Iriafen is unique because she uses all of those things — some more than others depending on the matchup.
“[Kiki] has the best of both worlds,” Mystics forward Emily Engstler told reporters on July 29. “Tall, strong, timing is good. You can’t do anything about that. You just gotta ask another teammate to help box her out.”
Engstler has unique insight into Iriafen’s rebounding because she often has the unenviable task of battling Iriafen in practice. At 6’1, Engstler gives up a few inches to Iriafen, but the bigger problem is Iriafen’s strength.
“Kiki’s strong as shit,” Engstler said. “She’s probably one of the strongest players I’ve played against in this league besides [Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas]. … She’s obviously tall, but I really think it’s more about her strength and her grit and the energy that she brings.”
Former Mystics head coach Eric Thibault, now the Lynx’s associate head coach, also noted Iriafen’s strength at Friday’s shootaround. “If you’re not ready to take the challenge physically with her, you can get bulldozed,” he told reporters.
Many of Iriafen’s gaudiest rebounding numbers happened early in the season, but that’s because she is drawing ever-more attention, both as a rebounder and as a scorer, as the season progresses. She’s gotten pinched on the free-throw line to keep her off the glass, faced double-teams in the post, and drawn opponents’ top post defender at times.
She has steadily improved to be able to flourish in increasingly crowded spaces and impose her will on games. When it comes to rebounding, part of that is learning her teammates better and anticipating where they like to shoot and where the ball will come off the rim.
“You know how [people] talk about really good point guards who can see two or three plays ahead?” Johnson said on July 29. “I think really good offensive rebounders anticipate shots and … they start almost boxing out early. Where they should be boxed out, they start driving defensive rebounders or their matchup … out of the way as they anticipate a shot going up.”
That’s exactly what Iriafen did at the end of Friday’s game to break Holdsclaw’s record. She also did it on the rebound that tied Holdsclaw’s record, which came with about two minutes left and the Mystics trailing 74-70.
As Austin drove toward the block against the smaller DiJonai Carrington, Iriafen ran in from the opposite baseline and wedged Lynx forward Jessica Shepard under the rim. When Austin missed long, Iriafen was in the perfect spot for the offensive rebound. She made the putback through contact, plus the ensuing free throw.
At her coaches’ suggestion, Iriafen has also focused more on offensive rebounding as a way to get shots even when opponents are double-teaming her or taking away her go-to moves.
“[I’m] just staying with it, trusting the process, understanding that maybe what worked in the first half of the season isn’t going to necessarily work now,” Iriafen told The Next on July 31. “So I think for me, something that I’ve just been doing is rebounding because I know I can do that really well, and trying to get easy ones in transition and kind of slip into a game flow from there.”
For any player, matching anything Holdsclaw did is a promising way to start a career. Holdsclaw, the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 WNBA Draft, was named Rookie of the Year and received MVP votes that season. Over her 11-year WNBA career, the 6’2 forward was a six-time All-Star and a three-time All-WNBA selection.
Holdsclaw played 162 games for Washington over six seasons. She averaged 18.3 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.4 steals in 34.3 minutes per game. She led the WNBA in rebounds per game in 2002 and 2003. And she still holds the franchise record for rebounds in a Mystics uniform and ranks third in win shares.
Yet the Mystics’ rookie rebounding record isn’t the only record that Iriafen has passed Holdsclaw for this season. Against the Seattle Storm on July 13, Iriafen had 10 points and 10 rebounds for her seventh double-double — one more than Holdsclaw had as a rookie.
Iriafen has been known to celebrate everyone else’s success, whether it’s shouting and clapping for Mystics center Stefanie Dolson’s ‘Wicked’-themed outfit before a game or sending Marshall an upbeat voice memo back after Marshall congratulated her on her All-Star selection. (“You would’ve thought I was an All-Star with all the energy she poured into that,” Marshall said.) So it was fitting that, before Iriafen’s first home game since breaking Holdsclaw’s rookie double-doubles record, Iriafen celebrated Holdsclaw, too.
Iriafen walked into the arena wearing a blue Mystics T-shirt with Holdsclaw’s name and number on it, and she made sure to pose for a photo pointing to the name on the back.
“I wanted to just pay homage to her, and just, she’s done so much, and especially being a Mystic,” Iriafen told The Next postgame. “So just wanted to give her a salute. We see her, we acknowledge her, and it’s just such an honor to be able to be in the same sentence as her.”
Little did Iriafen know that Holdsclaw had also recorded a congratulatory video for her, which played on the jumbotron during a first-half media timeout.
That’s because Iriafen has raised the bar for rookie success with the Mystics. And, like Holdsclaw a quarter-century ago, she’s slated to be a foundational piece for the franchise for years to come.
“She’s a core player for the Mystics. There’s just no two ways about it,” Johnson said on Friday. “… We saw early signs of that, and … [she’s] just continually getting better and better and adding more and more.”
Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The Next. The Next’s editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.
The Next’s Gabby Alfveby and Terry Horstman contributed reporting for this story.
