Thibault not afraid to buck the trend
Mystics don’t rely heavily on draft in building their roster
WASHINGTON — When she arrived in Washington at the start of the Mystics’ new era, Emma Meesseman had packed only two weeks’ worth of clothes.
It was the spring of 2013, and the 19-year-old from Belgium showed up at Mystics training camp with no expectations of making the team. Success in the WNBA wasn’t a lifelong dream; the American league was more on the periphery for a player who just hoped to make it big in Europe. Meesseman was looking forward to training camp in large part because it was an excuse to skip her final exams at university.
The team’s newly hired coach and general manager, Mike Thibault, had slightly higher expectations. Although it wasn’t the norm to look to Europe for players at that time, Thibault had been tracking Meesseman since she had been named FIBA Europe’s young player of the year in 2011. He liked her skills and had received good enough reports about her work ethic and personality that he took a shot and drafted Meesseman 19th overall.
Now a staple in Washington, she ended the 2019 regular season as the Mystics’ second-leading scorer, averaging 13.1 points per game while shooting 55.2% from the floor and 42.2% from 3-point range.
“We might have screwed up,” Thibault said. “We had two second-round picks, and we took her with the second one — we probably should’ve taken her with the first. We knew she would be good, but we had no idea how good. That was a little luck. But this all started with that draft.”
Many observers mark the beginning of this current WNBA era in Washington with the 2017 acquisitions of Elena Delle Donne and Kristi Toliver. But peek under the Mystics’ hood, and it’s far more complex than that — this team, which is seeded No. 1 in the playoffs and begins a semifinals series against No. 4 Las Vegas on Tuesday, is the culmination of a process that began in 2013.
It’s the product of Thibault’s long-term vision, an organizational emphasis on character as much as talent and, as was the case with Meesseman, a little luck.
The Mystics begin this year’s playoffs as by far the most dominant team: They entered Tuesday’s game at Entertainment and Sports Arena riding a 10-game home winning streak, after posting a leaguerecord 13 victories by 20 or more points this season and averaging a league-leading 89.3 points per game in the regular season. They extented the streak with a 97-95 win. (Best-of-5)
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They did so with a roster that’s something of an anomaly compared to other teams that have been dominant in the WNBA — not just this year, but this decade.
Only three of this year’s major contributors were drafted by Washington, and all three were either a surprise or a lowerround pick that turned out as well as it possibly could have: Meesseman was taken at No. 19 in 2013, starting point guard Natasha Cloud went No. 15 in 2015 and starting shooting guard Ariel Atkins unexpectedly went No. 7 in 2018.
Every other core player arrived in other ways.
In contrast, every title-winning team this decade aside from the 2010 Seattle Storm and the 2012 Indiana Fever has featured at least two players who were drafted No. 1 overall by the team with which they wonthe championship. Team’s cores have largely been homegrown.
Thibault, 68, who got his start in basketball as a scout and learned how to evaluate personalities, not just players, has employed a different method.
“[Thibault] is able to seek out talent and fit pieces together in the right ways,” ESPN analyst LaChina Robinson said.
Since 2013, Thibault’s vision for the team has been to play an up-tempo offense with players who are multidimensional. He’s taken players such as Cloud, a ball-handling guard who was also the Atlantic-10 Defensive Player of the Year as a junior, and Maryland product Tianna Hawkins, who can play with her back to the basket but is also a shooter. She arrived via trade in 2014.
Those he drafted for their fundamental skills, he developed: He coaxed Meesseman into shooting 3s; after she attempted only four in her first two years in the league, she went 19-for-45 from deep this season.
Just as paramount to skill set is character. When he finds a player with the right skills who’s also a good teammate, Thibault has shown he is willing to wait. LaToya Sanders, the team’s starting center, didn’t play in the league for three seasons from 2012-14 while she dealt with the death of her father and tended to overseas obligations.
Thibault liked her defense and knew from former Mystics player Ivory Latta, who played with Sanders at North Carolina, that her personality was the right fit. Thibault convinced Sanders to come back in 2015.
Seeking out such players has made a difference: All season, the Mystics have attributed their league-crushing offense to chemistry.
“That’s been the key to their success,” Robinson said. “They are so unbothered as a team. They’re so together. It’s very hard to shake them mentally in terms of their focus.”