WASHINGTON — No matter how you look at it, Shakira Austin has had an excellent start to the season for the Washington Mystics.
Through eight games, Austin is averaging 17.1 points and 8.6 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game, all of which are career bests. The 6’5 center ranks in the top 20 in the WNBA in points, rebounds and blocks per game.
She’s done that while being both consistent and efficient. She has scored at least 12 points in every game and is shooting better than 50% from the field overall. She has even started to add a 3-point shot, making three of seven attempts so far this season.
“She’s arriving, she’s blossoming and … she’s thriving,” head coach Sydney Johnson told reporters on May 29, after Austin had 25 points on 8-for-10 shooting and eight rebounds in a narrow loss to the Los Angeles Sparks.
In April, the 25-year-old Austin signed a three-year contract worth $1.19 million annually, which is the regular maximum salary for 2026. She recently told the “Bleav in the W” podcast that the contract motivates her to live up to it and show everything she can do on the court. She doesn’t think she got to show her full potential in her first four seasons, in part because injuries limited her to a total of 31 games in her second and third seasons.
Those injuries are behind her now, and she is focused on dominating.
“Going in and taking what’s mine, that’s really my mentality every day,” Austin told reporters after the loss to the Sparks. “I’ve been waiting to just be healthy, and I just want to go out there and be the person and the player that I know I can be. And right now, I’m in a situation where I can show that.”
“I think that she has done an extraordinary job, especially over the last two to three years, [with] her commitment to herself, working on herself,” Chicago Sky point guard Natasha Cloud, who played with Austin in Washington in 2022 and 2023, told The IX Basketball on Tuesday. “… She wants to be great. She wants to be elite. She’s put in the time. … I’m just pretty proud of her growth and just her relentlessness to prove herself right.”
The improvements Austin has made in scoring, rebounding and efficiency leap off the page. But more quietly, she has also taken big steps in two other areas: her passing and her leadership. Those steps have been especially important because they’ve brought her teammates along for the ride.
Seeing her options
Austin is averaging 2.6 assists per game, well above her previous best of 1.8 in 2025. She’s assisting on 18.1% of the shots her teammates make when she’s on the floor, which is about double her rate in 2024. Meanwhile, her turnover rate has remained flat at 16.3%. Sky head coach Tyler Marsh told reporters before facing the Mystics on Tuesday that Austin’s passing forces teams to think about pressuring her farther out than just in the low post.
Austin has kept the ball moving in the Mystics’ offense. Her 21 assists this season have gone to eight different teammates, and they’ve created shots the Mystics want to take. In the offseason, the coaching staff sought to reduce the number of midrange shots the team takes in favor of layups and 3-pointers. Ten of Austin’s assists have resulted in layups, and eight have produced 3-pointers. Just three have led to midrange shots.
“That’s what makes her great,” Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts told reporters before the game on May 29. “She’s a strong, powerful athlete that can get to the rim and put pressure on the rim, but if she’s looking to pass and create for others, then you’ve got … a two-headed beast.”
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In 2025, Austin had what was then a career-best season, but she felt like she had tunnel vision and was missing some reads she should’ve been making. So she stayed in Washington for part of her offseason and worked closely with the Mystics staff on making reads in game-like situations.
“What she was doing in the past is [when the] defense was collapsing, she didn’t know her options — she knew, but she needed to get more reps,” assistant coach Emre Vatansever told The IX Basketball on Sunday. “… And what we did in the offseason is we literally put her in those kind of situations that when she rolls to the basket, when she cuts to the basket, when she plays post-up, those help [defenders] come. …
“Day by day, we told her options, what the options are, and she responded well. She kept getting better, and it’s reflected this season.”
The coaches taught her to make decisions more quickly with the ball, which paradoxically helps her avoid getting sped up. If Austin holds the ball too long on the block or dribbles to buy herself time, defenses can crowd her or get in position to intercept her passes. When she understands her reads, she can choose the best one without rushing. That difference has helped her reach a new level as both a passer and a scorer.
After spending a few months in Washington, Austin played in the 3×3 league Unrivaled and for USA Basketball in the 3×3 Champions Cup. Playing 3×3 allowed Austin to test out the reads she’d worked on against live competition, but with more space and fewer defenders on the court than in a 5×5 game.
“Small-sided games [are] always helping because that’s the base and the foundation of the 5×5,” Vatansever said. “… That’s for sure helped her, I believe.”
After the Champions Cup ended, Austin went back to 5×5, playing for the Shanxi Flame in China’s top league. It was important to her to try to apply what she’d done in 3×3 to 5×5 before Washington’s training camp started, she said on “Bleav in the W.” In nine games with Shanxi — all in the playoffs — Austin averaged 17.9 points and 12.7 rebounds per game. Despite Shanxi relying on her heavily as a scorer, she also added 2.1 assists per game, including the game-winner in Game 2 of the league championship series.
Making a different kind of reads as a leader
An unexpected benefit of playing in China was what it taught Austin about leadership. The Flame parted ways with their translator and their head coach during the season, the latter during the championship series. And despite the language barrier, the Chinese players looked to Austin to guide them.
“My style is being dominant, but also bringing everybody with me,” Austin said on May 29. “And it was really like me being coach, me being player, having to go out there and perform, subbing people in. So just the patience and the grace that I learned to give out there, I didn’t think it would directly translate here, but it’s clear that it’s helped me.”
With the Mystics, Austin has been the veteran presence the team sorely needs. It’s the second-youngest team in WNBA history, trailing only the 2020 New York Liberty, and Austin is one of just two players who had more than one season of WNBA experience entering 2026.
When Austin was new to the WNBA, she played on some veteran Mystics teams. She learned from the leaders before her, but she also believes every leader has their own individual recipe, which comes together through experience and trial and error.
This season, Austin is trying to be a different kind of leader for her rookies than what professional sports often incentivize.
“The traditional way that the W has been, it’s not really catered to rookies, and I feel like coming in sometimes it can be more of a competition between, ‘Oh, I’m trying to take someone’s spot’ or things like that,” she said after a win over the Seattle Storm on May 27. “And I think just coming in and having more … open arms and trying to pour into each other, trying to have wisdom … [and] really just figuring out how to help each and every person.”
“If you watch her, she’s got an edge out there, but she is also trying to bring her teammates along in a healthy, positive, encouraging way,” Johnson said before facing the Sparks. “That’s all the difference in the world, and so to see that is really cool.”
Austin often tells her teammates not to be afraid of making mistakes and reminds them that they’re in the WNBA for a reason, according to second-year forward Kiki Iriafen. She hypes them up and banters with them in press conferences. In quieter moments, Austin can also talk to them about what she’s gone through as a pro, including seeing her role change from college to the WNBA and weathering injuries, and remind them not to conflate their worth as people with how they’re playing.
“My advice, honestly, is endless,” Austin said in preseason. “Whenever they want to talk, I’m always open. … I might not know exactly what it takes to win a championship, but I know how to feel better about yourself and how to show up for your team better.”
Austin also holds her teammates accountable, but she does it by asking them to rise to the occasion rather than cutting them down. Rookie guard Cassandre Prosper gave an example: When a player passes up a good shot, Austin might tell them they need to shoot it because it helps the team when they do.
“She does it in a way that’s very based with facts, and also her experience,” Prosper told The IX Basketball on Tuesday. “We know that she’s speaking from a place of just experience and knowledge. And I think she’s also allowing us to grow as young players, and not asking us to be perfect, but at least asking us to learn.”
During games, reading the situation and responding with the right words has sometimes required Austin to tap into different emotions than in past seasons.
“[If] it’s, we need to be pushed and she’ll be that person that’ll be on our ass, that’s her,” second-year guard Sonia Citron told reporters on May 29. “But then at the same time, when it’s we have to settle down … she’s kind of that calming voice, too, which is different. Usually, she’s just the hype one.”
‘That’s what it’s about’
Austin’s leadership is clearly resonating with her teammates, and as a result, she’s been able to elevate everyone around her. That showed in a two-game series in Seattle on May 24 and 27. The Mystics lost the first game after trailing by as many as 26 points, and when Austin watched the film, she saw that she’d missed some open 3-point shooters.
So she fixed that in the second game, finding wing Michaela Onyenwere for two 3-pointers within the first four minutes. That set the tone in the 14-point, wire-to-wire win. And Austin ended up leading the team in points, rebounds and assists for the first time in her career, according to Mystics PR.
“Kira has always had that edge about her, that competitive edge, and I think the way that she’s able to translate that and kind of fill us with that, too, has been phenomenal,” second-year point guard Georgia Amoore told The IX Basketball on May 29. “[After] that loss against Seattle, her energy and her approach to the second game … carried throughout our team and set us up to also have that edge. So she’s doing a great job of being a really good leader.”
Austin took a similar approach against the Sparks, notching assists to three different teammates in the first six minutes. The first two assists resulted in layups. The third started with Austin catching the ball deep in the post with a few defenders nearby. Last season in that scenario, player development lead Clinton Crouch told The IX Basketball, there was “no doubt” that she’d take a few dribbles and hunt her shot even as the defenders converged on her.
This time, the playbook was different. Austin immediately kicked the ball out to Prosper, who buried a corner three.
“No dribbles, no hesitation,” Crouch said. “… And Shakira was more happy than Cass, and Cass is the one who hit the shot. But I’m watching Shakira just scream and high-five and encourage her, and I almost got emotional, because it’s like, that’s what it’s about.”
Prosper said that a few games prior, her defender had been doubling Austin, and Austin had told her to be ready to shoot when Austin passed the ball out.
“So I feel like she was just really happy for me [against Los Angeles],” Prosper said, “and happy that I didn’t hesitate, I just took the shot, and kind of more like believed in myself to make the shot. … It was a great moment.”
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Ultimately, Austin sees her leadership as an extension of how she’s playing and what she’s doing every day. She doesn’t want to speak up about something if she’s not already modeling it herself.
This season, Austin has been able to back up everything she’s wanted to say, and that’s why it’s resonating so much. She’s assisting her teammates both on the court and off it, and it’s only helped her reach her lofty individual goals.
“I’ve just figured out how to really bring the team along,” she said on May 29. “… Somebody has to continuously be the standard, and I want that for myself, but also for the girls.”
Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The IX Basketball. The IX Basketball’s editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.
