Washington Mystics part ways with Mike and Eric Thibault, will begin new era

But that changed on Wednesday, when the Mystics and the Thibaults “mutually agreed to part ways,” according to an announcement from Michael Winger. Winger is the president of Monumental Basketball, which operates the Mystics and other local professional teams.

“We have decided we are at a point in our competitive and evolutionary cycle to turn the team over to new leadership,” Winger said in the announcement. “Coach Mike elevated the Mystics. … His fingerprints are all over this franchise and will be for years to come. We are grateful for Mike’s commitment, passion, and leadership and wish him well. 

“Coach Eric is a skilled coach and equally talented motivator. Our players are fortunate to have played for Eric these past two seasons, as will many other players in this league for decades ahead.”

There is currently no timeline to hire a head coach or a general manager, and either could come first, according to The Washington Post’s Kareem Copeland.

The Next, a 24/7/365 women’s basketball newsroom

The Next: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.

The Thibaults steadily built the Mystics franchise early in their tenures, inheriting a team that went 5-29 in 2012 — the season before they arrived — and winning a championship seven seasons later. They leaned on both player development and player acquisition, developing players outside the first round of the WNBA Draft into impactful pieces and engineering key trades to elevate the roster.

Those trades included acquiring superstar Elena Delle Donne in 2017 and flipping guard Tayler Hill for wing Aerial Powers in 2018. Both trades were critical to the Mystics’ championship victory. Mike Thibault was also unafraid to trade away or for draft assets as part of his overall strategy for building a winning franchise.

Eric Thibault was promoted to associate head coach in January 2019, and over the years, he turned down interviews for WNBA head coaching jobs to be able to succeed his father in Washington. He led the team for the past two seasons.

However, since winning the championship in 2019, the Mystics have struggled with seemingly endless injuries, including to Delle Donne. Across those five regular seasons, they’ve won just 45% of their games (76-94). They’ve missed the playoffs twice and gone winless in the playoffs the three other times, earning no better than a No. 5 seed.

The 2024 season was expected to be a rebuilding year for the Mystics from the start. Delle Donne decided to step back from basketball, and franchise point guard Natasha Cloud left in free agency. The Mystics ended up being the second-youngest team in the WNBA and had the league’s three youngest players by season’s end.

“We had several goals, and … one was to reshape our culture — to get ourselves back on the court to a better pace, a better spacing, more 3-point shooting, better passing situation,” Mike Thibault told reporters on Sept. 25, after the season ended. “And so I think in that regard … we made huge advances.”

The Mystics opened the season with 12 straight losses, but then the rebuild seemed to come quicker than expected. They went 14-14 over their final 28 games and nearly made the playoffs on the last day of the season.

Though the Thibaults were clear that they didn’t want to get used to missing the playoffs, they were relatively optimistic about how the team had performed late in the season and what the future would hold.

“Part of my job as a leader of a group is to show up and be accountable and be ready and try to get better when times are the hardest, and so I feel like I was able to do that,” Eric Thibault told reporters in his exit interview on Sept. 20. “Not alone, obviously; that’s something that requires a staff and players to buy in and medical staff and all that. …

“I think the biggest thing is, can you steer the course with your team? Can you stay on the course that you set out [for what] you wanted to be about as a team? … And I think we did a pretty good job of that over the course of the season. … It started to look like we want a Mystics team to look.”

Order ‘Rare Gems’ and save 30%

Howard Megdal, founder and editor of The Next and The IX, released his latest book on May 7, 2024. This deeply reported story follows four connected generations of women’s basketball pioneers, from Elvera “Peps” Neuman to Cheryl Reeve and from Lindsay Whalen to Sylvia Fowles and Paige Bueckers.

If you enjoy his coverage of women’s basketball every Wednesday at The IX, you will love “Rare Gems: How Four Generations of Women Paved the Way for the WNBA.” Click the link below to order and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.

Mike Thibault even said that the culture had been so strong this season that he hoped to “retain as many [players] as humanly possible that contributed to that.” And when he was asked to evaluate Eric’s coaching this season, he praised the staff.

“When you start out 0-12, that’s a time that a lot of people can jump off the ship, and nobody did,” Mike Thibault said. “That’s a testament to the entire staff, and it’s a testament to the players that they saw a way forward.

“I think [Eric has] done an exceptional job of keeping people on task [and] being innovative. When you have that many injuries, you have to be innovative and try different things. … I’m proud of what this staff has done.”

Four players were also asked in their exit interviews about Eric Thibault’s leadership, and all praised him for how he guided the team past the 0-12 start. Starters Brittney Sykes, Karlie Samuelson and Stefanie Dolson all highlighted his consistency and how they knew what to expect from him every day. In turn, that helped the players be consistent in games and in practices.

“We never lacked effort,” Dolson told reporters on Sept. 20. “And I think that’s because we always wanted to play hard for Eric and we knew how much he believed in us.”

“Eric is a true player’s coach. … We’re able to talk to him, and he’s able to receive different things,” added guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, who had a career season off the bench. “… I do appreciate the way he makes me feel as an individual and as a part of this organization and team, so that goes a really long way.

“And I think the way he showed up for us, because … if we felt discouraged at times, I can’t imagine how he felt as well. I mean, he’s a second-year head coach, still trying to figure it out. I don’t know if everyone has given him the grace that maybe he deserved at times — or deserves still to this day, because he’s still young in his career. But I don’t know if we could’ve overcome the things that we’ve [over]came without him.”

On Wednesday, Dolson posted on the social media platform X that the Thibaults’ departure “saddens [her] a lot” because they “truly became like family” to her. Dolson was drafted by the Mystics in 2014 and played in Washington for three seasons before being part of the Delle Donne trade. Before the 2024 season, she returned as a free agent and was a veteran leader for the team this season, bringing her career full circle.

Despite the Mystics finishing the 2024 season relatively strong and the plan Mike Thibault had to get them back in contention by 2026, Winger opted to reset the franchise again. In an interview with The Washington Post, Winger said, “There was a lot to like. There was also a lot that just didn’t fit with sort of my vision.”

Copeland reported that Winger’s vision might be “a more patient rebuild” than the Thibaults had been envisioning and that Winger wanted a more active role in determining the Mystics’ direction than he’d taken since he was hired in May 2023.

Want even more women’s sports in your inbox?

Subscribe now to our sister publication The IX and receive our independent women’s sports newsletter six days a week. Learn more about your favorite athletes and teams around the world competing in soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers.

Readers of The Next now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.

Still, the move comes at a challenging time considering the WNBA calendar and the demands on front offices this offseason in particular. Four other teams — the Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Dallas Wings and Los Angeles Sparks — parted ways with their head coach and/or their general manager sooner, giving them a head start on hiring. The expansion Golden State Valkyries also already hired their head coach and their general manager ahead of their debut season in 2025, taking potential candidates off the market.

Copeland reported that the Mystics will likely not hire replacements for the Thibaults before the expansion draft on Dec. 6 — an event for which the Mystics front office needs to decide which players to protect from selection. That elongated timeline will also stretch into the college season, when the front office needs to prepare for a college draft in which the Mystics will have two top-six picks.

In addition, the players association opted out of the current collective bargaining agreement on Oct. 21, which sets up potentially large-scale changes in WNBA operations by the start of the 2026 season. This move was expected, and Mike Thibault had been preparing for it for at least a year in how he managed his roster and other assets.

The new general manager will not have had that luxury. Depending on the timing of the hires, the Mystics’ newcomers could be playing a lot of catch-up as the organization pivots away from the culture the Thibaults established over the past 12 years and toward a new identity.