‘A domino effect’: Shatori Walker-Kimbrough leads Mystics’ bench with buckets, blocks and pregame pep talks

After all the players coming off the court had passed her, Walker-Kimbrough turned back toward the bench. She started bouncing up and down, swinging her arms as she danced to Archie Eversole’s “We Ready.”

It was a lighthearted moment in a tense situation, with the Mystics up by three and their playoff hopes heavily dependent on the result. Two days later, Walker-Kimbrough didn’t remember that moment specifically, but she said she always hopes that her energy can lift her teammates.

“The more relaxed I can be, if that can … touch somebody else and they become more relaxed, that’s a domino effect,” Walker-Kimbrough told The Next. “So that’s probably what I was going [for].”

Walker-Kimbrough has been having an impact on her teammates like that all season, while also having a career year individually. Though the Mystics have struggled to a 13-26 record, the 29-year-old is averaging career highs nearly across the board and has been one of the WNBA’s most productive bench players. She leads the league in points, steals and minutes off the bench and ranks among the top seven in assists, 3-pointers and blocks off the bench.

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Walker-Kimbrough was drafted sixth overall by the Mystics in 2017 and has spent most of her career in Washington. She won a championship with the Mystics in 2019, was traded twice in 2020 and was briefly out of the league in 2021 before returning to the Mystics midseason.

When she rejoined the Mystics, she was a more mature player. She’d heard the same things the Mystics had told her from fresh voices and learned what it felt like to have to fight to get back on a WNBA roster. She’s been with the Mystics ever since, and she earned the first guaranteed contract of her career in 2023.

Walker-Kimbrough’s role with the Mystics has always been to provide energy off the bench. But over the years, she’s gotten better and more consistent at both ends of the court.

Entering the 2024 season, Walker-Kimbrough knew she’d have to step up. The Mystics were going to have a younger roster than in previous years, so she wanted to be consistent, be ready and be a leader from Day 1 of training camp. She tried to approach every day like a playoff berth was on the line, and she sought to impress that upon her younger teammates.

“I think … the best or better teams are the teams that have depth,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “And so I know how important having the bench is and having good players that you can rely on, and so we just got to … show up every single time. And I wanted to express that to our bench mob.”

“It’s been dope just to watch her just talk and be more vocal — more vocal than she was last year,” starting guard Brittney Sykes told The Next on Tuesday. “Like, she always talked and led, but this year, I can just tell she really took a sense of pride in making sure that she was prepared and ready from Day 1 as a leader.”

Her leadership ended up helping her game, too, by reinforcing what she needs to do every day and keeping her accountable, so she isn’t saying one thing to her teammates and doing another. Walker-Kimbrough is averaging 7.4 points, 1.8 assists, 1.7 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 0.5 blocks in 22.1 minutes per game. Her minutes aren’t a career high, but nearly everything else is. 

“Her consistency and her confidence [have] been huge for us,” starting guard Ariel Atkins, who has played with Walker-Kimbrough for six seasons, told reporters on July 4. “… You see the work out on the floor, but she’s the same person day in and day out when she comes to the gym and puts in the work. So I’m not surprised by it at all.”

“The fact that she comes off the bench with the energy that she does, she’s always a problem for the other team,” Dolson told The Next on Tuesday. Dolson added that Walker-Kimbrough is one of her top targets to pass to in pick-and-rolls and on backdoor cuts with her timing and basketball IQ.

‘She’s always in the right spots’

Walker-Kimbrough has scored in double figures 13 times this season, including in four straight games in early July. The first game in that streak was a 17-point performance on 6-for-10 shooting in a two-point win over the Los Angeles Sparks. In the fourth quarter alone, she had 10 points and got to the free-throw line for five attempts.

“[When I’m] overall happiest is when Shatori’s aggressive. I think that’s just the difference-maker for her,” head coach Eric Thibault told reporters postgame. “She got to the rim. She made open shots. …

“She’s mad at herself for a couple [missed] free throws because she’s usually money there. But the fact that she wanted to take those shots down the stretch of the game is such a big deal for our team. … I don’t care if she misses them. It’s all about her mindset and her aggressiveness.”

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Walker-Kimbrough has also improved on defense. She has always had the potential to be an elite defender with her length, quickness and athleticism, but she felt a sense of urgency in 2022, when she was surrounded by All-WNBA defenders Atkins, Natasha Cloud and Alysha Clark on the perimeter and didn’t want opposing teams to pick on her.

Now, Walker-Kimbrough often takes the opponent’s best perimeter player when she checks in for Atkins or Sykes, another All-WNBA defender — and sometimes when those players come back in, Walker-Kimbrough keeps the matchup.

“I think between me, A and Shatori, we all take a pretty good load of a defensive assignment … and you can look at that person and trust and know, ‘All right, I can trust that my teammate’s gonna have my back,'” Sykes said. “And she does every time.”

Walker-Kimbrough learned from Clark how to study film in depth and prepare for defensive matchups. But this season, Walker-Kimbrough said, she’s been able to apply more of that film study to games. She can recall what passes or cuts teams are looking for on certain offensive sets and adjust her defense to deny those. And she knows what types of shots specific players like out of certain actions and can force them to different spots — or anticipate and block their shot.

“You see her blocking jump shots, which is kind of [one of] the cardinal sins against guards … because you don’t want to foul the shooter,” Atkins said on Sunday. “But she does, and she does it well. She knows herself. She’s always in the right spots.”

Walker-Kimbrough has also gotten even better at getting around screens and guarding one-on-one. She is confident in the help behind her, which lets her pressure her matchup more. That, along with her penchant for getting in passing lanes, produces a lot of steals.

“It’s weird if she doesn’t get a breakaway layup from a steal anymore,” reserve point guard Jade Melbourne told reporters on Sunday. “It’s a regular one-[per]-game occurrence.”

Beyond her individual impact, Walker-Kimbrough has been the clear leader of the bench mob. That group has seen members go in and out plenty, as Thibault has used 12 different starting lineups in an injury-plagued season, but Walker-Kimbrough is the constant. She is one of only three players who has appeared in every game, and she’s come off the bench in all but two of them. She could easily have started more often, but Thibault has hesitated to do that because of the value she brings as a reserve.

Just before each game tips off, Walker-Kimbrough huddles the bench mob for a pep talk.

“It’s just kind of hyping them up and just going over our scout and just making sure that we know … what we have to do going in, and also just reiterating that we never know who’s going to be going in first,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s Karlie [Samuelson], sometimes it’s Emily [Engstler], but we have to know that whoever’s that first one in is the spark. … So that’s kind of what I reiterate.”

“She’s always encouraging. She’s hyping us up,” Melbourne said. “And we go out there thinking we’re the best team, we’re the best players.”

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Once the game starts, Walker-Kimbrough doesn’t stop talking — and she keeps bringing the energy, whether she’s in the game or on the sidelines. “There’s moments where I find myself playing good [defense] because she’s hyping me up to play good D,” Engstler told reporters on Sept. 3. And if a teammate makes a mistake, Walker-Kimbrough makes sure they stay locked in mentally.

All of that makes a big impact on her teammates, especially younger ones like 22-year-olds Melbourne, Aaliyah Edwards and Sika Koné.

“She’s got a lot to worry about, too, in her own game — coming off the bench, bringing that spark, bringing that scoring ability,” Melbourne said. “But the fact that she’s able to be unselfish, share some words of wisdom with everyone, continue to encourage people and be that leader, I think that’s … been super impressive.”

‘You don’t necessarily get a rest’

The domino effect of Walker-Kimbrough’s leadership is that the Mystics have had the league’s most potent bench. The Mystics’ bench leads the WNBA in points, rebounds, assists, steals and minutes per game. Even looking at points per 40 minutes, to account for the heavier minutes the Mystics’ reserves have played, they still lead the league. They have scored over a third of the Mystics’ total points, the highest share in the WNBA, and are the only bench in the league to score 50 or more points in two games this season.

“The most challenging thing is that you don’t necessarily get a rest,” Atlanta Dream head coach Tanisha Wright told reporters on Sunday about facing the Mystics’ bench. “There’s no drop-off whenever they come in. … I think that they have a mentality that they’re just as good as anybody that’s on the floor, and that’s how they approach it, and that’s how they come out and play.”

There is also the challenge of preparing for so many bench players, as Thibault has been substituting especially often in recent weeks. As Connecticut Sun head coach Stephanie White told reporters before playing the Mystics on Aug. 31, “We have to, No. 1, understand personnel, because the players that he brings in do different things. … It makes it a little bit more difficult because you got to go deeper into the scout.”

But Walker-Kimbrough has to be near the top of any scouting report on the Mystics’ bench players this season. When she was cut in 2021, she decided she had to become indispensable so that would never happen again. She’s become that for Washington — and it might win her her first WNBA award since she made the All-Rookie Team in 2017.

“I don’t see why Shatori shouldn’t be Sixth Player of the Year,” Thibault said on Sept. 11. “I think she is what … that award is designed to recognize. She has hit those markers. …

“It would be a great testament to the year she’s had — and not just the year, but the career she’s had and the growth she’s shown.”