July 24, 2024
Julie Vanloo is quietly rewriting rookie records with the Washington Mystics
‘She’s someone who deserves to be here and has shown that every single day’
WASHINGTON — On Aug. 25, 2019, a 26-year-old Julie Vanloo attended a Los Angeles Sparks game at Staples Center during a vacation to the United States. The Belgium native was “fangirling in the shop,” she told reporters recently, “buying stuff from the Sparks and a keychain and everything.”
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Vanloo was coming off a season playing in Hungary and would leave for another in Australia soon. She’d played professionally in Europe for about a decade, and she frequently told her mom how much she wanted to play in the WNBA one day.
Fast forward to July 2, 2024, when Vanloo returned to Los Angeles and started for the Washington Mystics against the Sparks in the same building, now known as Crypto.com Arena. After the Mystics’ morning shootaround, the 31-year-old rookie walked out of the arena and remembered being on the same street five years earlier.
“Look, Mom, I’m playing in the Staples Center, where five years ago, I was just dreaming about it,” she texted.
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Then Vanloo got on the Mystics’ bus and took a moment to reflect on what she’d achieved in those five years. She realized she should put less pressure on herself this season and be proud of how far she’d come. And she decided to post about the moment on social media, writing in an Instagram story, “To all my followers, never give up man! Never ever!!!”
But Vanloo, a starting guard for the Belgian national team and a 2023 EuroBasket champion, has done even more than make the WNBA this season after years of trying. She is already climbing up the Mystics and WNBA rookie record books.
On July 14, Vanloo claimed the Mystics rookie record for 3-pointers in a season in only her 24th game. And her 53 threes at the Olympic break rank in the top 20 in WNBA rookie history with 15 regular-season games left.
| 3-pointers | Assists | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current total (through 25 games) | 53 | 127 | 210 |
| All-time rank among Mystics rookies | 1st | 3rd | 13th |
| All-time rank among WNBA rookies | T-19th | T-25th | – |
Vanloo also ranks third in Mystics rookie history in total assists — recently surpassing the rookie total of the franchise’s all-time assists leader, Natasha Cloud — and 13th in points just past the halfway mark of the season.
Approaching franchise records this early in the season “speaks to the potential of Julie Vanloo in this league and what kind of player she can be,” Mystics assistant coach Ashlee McGee told The Next on July 13.
The Mystics had known about Vanloo for a long time because they’d seen her play alongside Belgium and former Mystics star Emma Meesseman. But around the time Vanloo watched that Sparks game at Staples Center, the consensus was that she wasn’t WNBA-level, at least not yet.
“I wouldn’t have guessed maybe five or six years ago that she was going to turn out to be this level of player,” Mystics head coach Eric Thibault told reporters in May. Vanloo’s agents also told her she wasn’t good enough, so she stopped talking about her WNBA dreams.
She didn’t stop believing in herself, though, and eventually she changed agents. Over the years, Vanloo carved out a starting role on the Belgian national team, and she became more consistent at the club level. When the Mystics saw her play point guard full-time this winter for the Turkish team Galatasaray, to go with what they’d seen from her at shooting guard for Belgium, they decided she was ready for the WNBA.
“I’m gonna be honest: I knew she was a scorer. I didn’t know that she had some of the craft in her passing that she has,” said McGee, who works closely with the Mystics’ point guards. “She’s able to make some of the fancier passes, and that’s hard to do. Not a lot of people have that.”
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Vanloo was expected to back up Brittney Sykes this season at point guard, but that changed less than 50 minutes into the season, when Sykes sprained her ankle against the Connecticut Sun. Vanloo became a starter in the third game of the season and has started all but one game since.
On the season, Vanloo is averaging 8.5 points, 5.1 assists and 1.8 rebounds in 25.5 minutes per game. She is also shooting 35.2% from the field and 34.0% from behind the arc.
“I think she does a really good job of facilitating our offense and finding the open man and knocking down the threes when she’s open, even with a lot of pressure in that aspect of being the team leader on a team you’re brand-new to,” forward Emily Engstler told The Next on July 14. “So I look up to Julie. I think she’s a great leader, and I think that she’s someone who deserves to be here and has shown that every single day.”
Veteran guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough praised Vanloo for her consistency and for taking on an expanded role. “Being a rookie here in the W, it’s just a roller coaster,” Walker-Kimbrough told The Next on July 14. But Vanloo steadies the Mystics by setting the pace offensively and picking up opposing point guards full court.
“I’m not looking at the numbers. I’m just looking at … the way she just shows up for us,” Walker-Kimbrough said.
On July 14, the day Vanloo would break the Mystics’ rookie 3-point record, she looked extremely loose in warmups. At one point, she tracked down a long rebound and dribbled between her legs, then behind her back before casually launching a 3-pointer.
She also imitated one of her favorite shots, a stepback three off one leg, at the end of a passing drill with wing DiDi Richards. Richards held her arms in a circle to serve as the rim, and the two flexed and chest-bumped after Vanloo “swished” her shot.
Vanloo set the record on her second 3-point attempt of the night, with 29.8 seconds left in the first half. She caught the ball near the top of the key, dribbled once to her left and nailed the shot with no hesitation.
The public address announcer mentioned Vanloo’s feat just after the halftime buzzer, and forward Myisha Hines-Allen fist-bumped Vanloo’s shoulder in congratulations as they walked off the court.
There was just one problem: Vanloo hadn’t heard the announcement, so she looked at Hines-Allen blankly.
“I’m like, ‘Girl, did you not just hear that you got a record?’” Hines-Allen told The Next postgame. “… I guess that’s never been a goal of hers, huh, coming into the league.”
Hines-Allen added, “[The fact that] she already got the record is crazy and we still got a second half to go. Wow, that’s impressive.”
Vanloo hit two more 3-pointers in the second half, but she still hadn’t processed her record in her postgame press conference. “Which record?” she asked when the topic came up. “Really?”
After the news sunk in, Vanloo turned to veteran guard Ariel Atkins, who was sitting beside her and had previously held the record. “My bad!” Vanloo said.
“I feel like I’m not even shooting very well, to be honest,” Vanloo added. “I feel like I can shoot way better. … I’m working on it, working on my confidence, working on my balance when I shoot. So yeah, it’s nice. I’m surprised. I didn’t expect it.”
Vanloo has hit at least one 3-pointer in 23 of 25 games and at least two in 15 games. She has hit a career-high five in three games — including at Los Angeles on July 2.
“I don’t think she or us quite expected the load we’ve put on her. … She’s stepped up in a big way,” Thibault told reporters postgame on July 14. “We had to throw her into the fire pretty early in the season, and she’s taken the challenge.”
Asked about yielding the record, Atkins told reporters, “[I’m] super excited for it to be someone who’s so grateful to have this opportunity and so much gratitude for the dream that she’s been able to make come true. And so I’m really happy for her.”
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As the season has progressed, Vanloo has gotten more and more comfortable running the show for the Mystics. She has adjusted to the physicality of the WNBA and learned when and where each of her teammates likes to receive the ball. She’s also become less hesitant to speak up and take charge.
“She came down here fairytaled-eyed and excited about the opportunity and super thankful,” Atkins told The Next on July 13. “… But I think she’s learning kind of throughout the season to be able to adapt and also not being afraid to tell us what she’s seeing.”
“I came in with a rookie mentality because … I just want to respect everybody, get to the training camp and then see,” Vanloo told reporters on June 29. “But the fact that Sykes is injured, I know I have to step up, and I feel like everybody really respects me. … That’s what makes me be a leader on the court … and I know with my experience that I can show that and I can bring that. So I think it’s [been] more the veteran experience than the rookie experience [for me this season].”
With her considerable experience playing internationally, Vanloo has also mentored 21-year-old Australian point guard Jade Melbourne, who is in her second WNBA season and her first with the Mystics. Despite their age difference, they share a lot of similarities: They are both relatively new to the league, have a distinctive joy about how they play and love to push the pace as point guards.
“I think she’s one of the best passers in the world, to be honest,” Melbourne told The Next on July 12. “I’ve never seen someone be able to manipulate defenses and make reads like she does. So it’s really cool to have someone by your side like that. …
“It’s really easy for an older rookie point guard to kind of not take a younger person under their wing. But she’s done that, credit to her, and she’s been unbelievable for my game.”
Vanloo will spend the WNBA’s Olympic break representing Belgium in the Paris Games, where she hopes to help the Cats avenge a disappointing seventh-place finish in the Tokyo Olympics. Then she’ll return to Washington to build on what she accomplished in the first half of the season.
Despite already setting the franchise rookie record for 3-pointers, McGee thinks Vanloo can shoot more in the second half of the season. Vanloo started to do that in the last few weeks before the break, increasing her shot attempts from 8.2 per game in May and June to 10.2 in July. That increase was driven by threes — and she also made them at a higher percentage.
| May and June | July | |
|---|---|---|
| Points per game | 8.1 | 9.8 |
| Field goal attempts per game | 8.2 | 10.2 |
| 3-point attempts per game | 5.7 | 7.8 |
| Share of shots from 3 | 70.3% | 77.0% |
| 3-point shooting percentage | 33.0% | 36.2% |
In the Mystics’ last game before the break, a loss to the Phoenix Mercury on July 16, Vanloo had a career-high 17 points on 5-for-12 shooting from three. Afterward, Thibault credited Vanloo for being one of the few players willing to shoot against Phoenix’s zone.
Vanloo already has the most 3-pointers in a rookie season by an undrafted WNBA player, and she’s on pace to challenge Atlanta Dream guard Rhyne Howard’s overall rookie record of 85. (However, Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark is on track to smash that, with 71 threes in 26 games so far.)
Vanloo’s minutes and shot attempts will also likely decrease with Sykes expected to return after the Olympic break, so her pace may slow somewhat.
But Vanloo should still set the Mystics rookie record for assists, as she has 127 and needs just 51 more. (That total of 127 is also already a WNBA record for undrafted players.) And she has a chance to finish in the top five in franchise history in points in a rookie season.
“She’s done a great job,” Thibault said on July 4. “… She’s not the 22-year-old rookie, but it’s still a learning curve coming in our league, and she’s handled it like a pro.”
As the Mystics have struggled to a 6-19 record, Vanloo’s play has flown somewhat under the radar nationally. But she has caught the eye of at least two great WNBA point guards.
“Oh, I like her,” Aces head coach Becky Hammon told reporters with a smile on June 29. Hammon went undrafted in 1999 but played 16 seasons in the WNBA and was named one of the top 25 players in WNBA history in 2021. “She’s feisty, she plays hard, she plays the right way. Yeah, I’m a fan.”
Cloud has also watched Vanloo this season and come away impressed. Cloud is in her first season with the Mercury after spending nine years in Washington, and her name appears often in the Mystics’ record books. After Cloud’s first game back in Washington on July 16, she praised Vanloo’s passing, court vision and shooting.
“If there was another point guard that I would have trusted to lead this organization,” Cloud told reporters, “she’s a great one.”
Five years ago, Vanloo was in awe as she took in a WNBA game. She dreamed of playing on the same courts against the best players in the world. She’s done that and more this season — not only playing but starting, not only contributing but rewriting the Mystics’ record books. In the process, she is redefining what it means to be a rookie in Washington.
Written by Jenn Hatfield
Jenn Hatfield has been a contributor to The Next since December 2018 and is currently the site's managing editor, Washington Mystics beat reporter and Ivy League beat reporter. Her work has also appeared at FiveThirtyEight, Her Hoop Stats, FanSided, Power Plays and Princeton Alumni Weekly.
