WASHINGTON — Aaliyah Edwards had made a statement in the offseason, and the second-year Washington Mystics forward knew it.
So when she took questions at the Mystics’ media day on April 28, she couldn’t resist hinting at her success in Unrivaled.
“Some people saw a little showcase down in Miami this offseason,” Edwards told reporters as a broad smile crept across her face.
Unrivaled is a 3×3 league founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart. Its debut season ran from mid-January to mid-March, with a pause in the middle for a one-on-one tournament.
Edwards was one of four Mystics to play in Unrivaled, joining center Stefanie Dolson, guard Brittney Sykes and center/forward Shakira Austin. Those four players started 85 of 103 games they appeared in for the Mystics in 2024. They are expected to have even larger roles in 2025 and anchor the franchise’s rebuild.
“In Unrivaled, being in that environment, I know we weren’t on the same team,” Edwards said about the other Mystics. “But playing against them and just seeing them from day to day, I can see that we all got better and we grew in something.”
Unrivaled benefited many WNBA players, as they got to play against elite competition while getting more rest during the offseason than overseas play often allows. But for the Mystics, Unrivaled also helped them practice much of what first-year head coach Sydney Johnson is emphasizing in 5×5.
Johnson has implemented an up-tempo, positionless offense that calls for players to make quick decisions from all over the court. All of those elements are key in 3×3.
“I love the fact that all of [the Unrivaled] players were being put in positions where they had to pass, dribble, shoot in different areas of the floor; play at a certain pace; [and] defend different areas of the floor,” Johnson told reporters at media day. “All of that stuff was wonderful and so Mystics-specific.”
At age 33, Dolson said she’s largely past the point of expanding her skill set, but Unrivaled kept her game-ready while still allowing her to be fresh for the WNBA season. She had played 3×3 internationally before, including winning an Olympic gold medal in 2021. But Unrivaled had somewhat different rules, which exposed her to a new style of play.
“For me, Unrivaled was more of an opportunity to play with different players, play a different style … and just a chance to play basketball in general,” Dolson told reporters at media day.
Across 14 regular-season and playoff games in Unrivaled, Dolson averaged 7.9 points and 4.5 rebounds in 12.5 minutes per game for Laces BC. (In Unrivaled games, the first three quarters are seven minutes each, and the fourth quarter is played to a target score rather than a set amount of time. No player in the league averaged more than 19.6 minutes per game.) She also shot 58.3% from the field and 41.7% from 3-point range.
Sykes got a double dose of 3×3 this winter, as she won a silver medal at the FIBA 3×3 AmeriCup in December before playing in Unrivaled. Paradoxically, her biggest takeaway was how to be patient in such a fast-moving game.
“In 3×3, people think that you go, go, go, go, go, but you’re going nowhere,” Sykes told The Next on April 27. “You get jumbled up on top of each other, and there’s no spacing. And there’s so much space in 3×3. So for me, I’ve learned just be patient, see what the defense is doing, and then react off of that. Because instead of running towards the ball, I can run [to] the corner and I can get a wide-open three.”
At Unrivaled, Sykes averaged 11.9 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 13.9 minutes per game for Rose BC, which won the inaugural title. She made 48.0% of her 2-pointers on the season, including the game-winning and-one in the championship. That shot came off a drive to the rim from the top of the key, and she slowed down on her last step, patiently waiting for contact and finishing the layup.
That move was something Sykes, often known as “Slim,” had worked on with Rose BC’s coaches. And the Mystics are seeing the results in training camp.
“She’s just equipped herself with new scoring tools,” point guard Jade Melbourne told The Next on Saturday. “… I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, Slim, you can do that now!’ So just her ability to play off two feet, she could always do, but there’s more to it now.”
Sykes also learned about leadership at Unrivaled from watching Las Vegas Aces point guard Chelsea Gray steady Rose BC.
“Now I understand why it’s so imperative to have your point guard be poised … in times of trouble, because every time I looked at her, I never fret,” Sykes told reporters on Friday.
Sykes is looking to apply that patience, aggressiveness getting to the rim and leadership with the Mystics. At age 31, she and Dolson are the veterans on the WNBA’s youngest team, which has an average age of 25.5 years old. So Sykes will be relied on as a scorer and a tone-setter.
“She sets a really good standard for all of us, that I can put her with other players and really feel like we have our identity,” Johnson said. “… When I have [her], I just feel like we can try to get to where we want to get to.”
Sykes and Austin both played in Unrivaled after injuries derailed their 2024 season with the Mystics, and both made it through the two-month season healthy. Austin was pleased about that, but she said the style of play “wasn’t the greatest” for her individually. She averaged 7.8 points and 3.8 rebounds per game on 51.1% shooting, but she played only 9.1 minutes per game — about half as many as Collier, the other Lunar Owls big.
In the one-on-one tournament, Austin showed flashes of her expansive skill set, beating Gray in the first round before falling to Los Angeles Sparks forward/center Azura Stevens. (Sykes and Dolson did not participate in one-on-one.)
Despite being only 24 years old, Austin has played the most consecutive seasons with the Mystics of anyone on the roster. So she will lead in her own way alongside Sykes and Dolson, and Johnson will leverage her strengths and highlight her more in his system than she was at Unrivaled.
Austin’s biggest takeaway from Unrivaled was seeing the leadership of her Lunar Owls teammates Collier, Skylar Diggins and Courtney Williams.
“[With the] leadership that I was able to pick up on … even though I didn’t have games that I would be proud of, I was still able to go home and say, ‘Hey, I learned something here. I can take this back to my team,’” Austin told reporters at media day. “And I was just appreciative of that part.”
However, it’s not certain whether Austin will be available for the Mystics’ season opener on May 16. She was held out of the team’s two preseason games, with Johnson saying she needs to strengthen her base to perform at her best, and she is considered day-to-day.
Edwards, playing for Mist BC, was the only Mystic who did not advance to the Unrivaled playoffs, but she was still one of the league’s breakout stars. In the one-on-one tournament, the 22-year-old beat Stewart, Allisha Gray and Arike Ogunbowale by a combined score of 35-8 to make the finals. Those three players have combined for 12 WNBA All-Star berths and two WNBA MVP awards.
Facing Collier in the best-of-three finals, Edwards won the first round 9-6 but lost the next two to finish as the runner-up.
“I gained so much respect from all the vets across the league, so I think they’re a little scared now,” she said at media day with a laugh.
Edwards also had a solid showing in 3×3, averaging 7.6 points and 5.3 rebounds in 9.0 minutes per game while shooting 57.0% from the field.
Having played only one WNBA season before Unrivaled, she valued the chance to get more experience and improve her decision-making against WNBA competition. But even more importantly, she said, she got to hone her fundamentals, including her footwork, ball-handling, finishing in the post and jump shooting.
In Year 2 in Washington, Edwards wants to be able to score from everywhere on the court. Dolson is confident she can do that, saying, “Everyone saw her in the one-on-one, but that’s something that she can do every day.”
However, Edwards said she won’t seek out too many one-on-one battles in the flow of the Mystics’ offense.
“I’m not looking to do an iso matchup every time I get the ball or craving that one-on-one backdown,” she said. “But I think elements from the one-on-one that I gained from it was just my confidence, knowing … I have those skill sets in my bag, and when the time and place comes … where to get to my spots and how I can make the bucket. So I think it’s more thinking of it in that way.”
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Perhaps the only thing that could’ve slowed Edwards’ momentum from Unrivaled was injury. She didn’t finish the Mystics’ first official practice due to soreness, and the team announced on May 1 that she’d miss at least two weeks with a low back contusion. That puts her status in question for the season opener.
But whenever Edwards and Austin return to play alongside Sykes and Dolson, they’ll bring what they learned from Unrivaled to the table. Playing 3×3 exposed all four to different spacing, angles and tactics, and that should help them thrive and be creative in a similarly freewheeling Mystics offense.
“Unrivaled … put a different light on what these players can do,” Sykes said on April 27. “You’re not keeping them in a box anymore. You’re being able to see them, and they’re allowed to kind of experiment. Just because you’re a big doesn’t mean you can’t dribble. … I don’t think you should stop somebody from trying something.
“And I think that’s what Unrivaled and 3×3 did for a lot of bigs and a lot of guards. They were allowed to experiment and show what they got in their tool[box] rather than what they are in 5×5.”
