Who has stepped up the most during the Mystics' injury spell
Who has stepped up the most during the Mystics' injury spell originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
Mystics Head coach Eric Thibault said it in the days following Shakira Austin's hip injury; it was going to take a "collective effort" from the entire squad to make up for the loss of their star center. As more injuries piled up, that mantra continued as Elena Delle Donne suffered not one, but two ankle sprains, and then when Ariel Atkins suffered the same fate a game later.
The result is four Washington Mystics (36.4% of the roster) on the mend when including Kristi Toliver (plantar fasciitis) who has been out for over six weeks. It's resulted in three players joining the team on hardship contracts and an entirely different squad than the one that was set to compete for a championship.
And with that amount of loss, everyone has had to step up. Some players stepping up more than others.
The biggest players who have tried to fill the void of missing three starters are the two who remain: Brittney Sykes and Natasha Cloud. Prior to the injuries they each had an 18.9% and 18.2% usage rate, which basically is an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while they were on the floor. If everything was balanced, all five players would have a 20% usage.
Once Austin got injured on June 25, that jumped to 26.8% usage for Sykes and 22.7% for Cloud. Then following the Delle Donne and Atkins injury, those increased further to 28.3% and 24.3%, respectively. The results on the court speak for themselves.
Obviously without those three starters, other players have to score more. Sykes has been the biggest beneficiary of that jump by averaging 10.5 points per game in the 13 games with Austin to 18.8 points in the 12 without her. She's also seen her shooting numbers increase from 39.8% from the field to 45.5%, presumably with more room in the offense to go downhill and attack the paint.
Scoring isn't the only way she's moved into a larger role either. Without the 6-foot-5 Austin, it was the 5-foot-9 guard who filled in her place to take the opening tips.
Cloud is in a similar spot, she has always been the type who prioritizes setting up her teammates rather than getting her own buckets. But by scoring 23 and 24 points in back-to-back games, the point guard has shown how she can impact the game when her scoring is needed.
Her point total has gone up nearly three points per game (11.3 to 14.0) from prior to Austin's injury to without her, while impressively maintaining her six assists per game.
Missing three starters meant Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, Tianna Hawkins and Myisha Hines-Allen are now a part of the starting lineup. Naturally, more minutes should mean there is more opportunity to go around and those are the three biggest candidates to see more prominent roles.
Each of those three has had their moments in the spotlight. Points production has nearly doubled for all three; their shooting is significantly up as well. Perhaps the most impressive of the bunch, though, is Hawkins who continues to contribute after she claimed the final roster spot coming out of training camp.
Hawkins' improvement from 4.5 points per game prior to June 25 to 11.6 points after is among a handful of stats that have jumped up for her over the last month. The jump in production, however, is coming while her usage is relatively unchanged (15.8% to 16.3%).
"[We're d]efinitely trying to use some timeout opportunities for each of them over the course of the game," Thibault said of the Hawkins, Hines-Allen and Walker-Kimbrough trio. "Some of them probably get shots in the flow easier than others, like Myisha tends to find her spots, partly because she has centers guarding her a lot right now."
Another player whose usage is roughly the same throughout all the injuries has been Li Meng. She hasn't seen 'the benefit' of more opportunity with those four players missing. Li's minutes are the highest they've been all year, yet her 5.7 points per game in the games since Atkins' injury (July 11) are below her season average. Her 3-point shooting has also decreased in that span (30.8%) compared to 35.8% for the whole year.
Her usage is also stagnant at 16.3 (was 16.1 in the team's first 13 games). That means despite playing more minutes, and many of those with the hardship players, she's not seeing more action in the offense.
No matter who it is, the Mystics are going to need more of the supporting cast to fill in the gaps made by the absence of the four players. While there's no official timeline on any of their returns, it projects to be at least another week before someone comes back.
