WASHINGTON — Washington Mystics rookie Lauren Betts was angry when she went scoreless on 0-for-4 shooting in the team’s season opener on May 8. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t scored in a game. But a teammate told her, “Some days you’re gonna be like the shit, and other days you’re gonna be like the fire hydrant.”
“I was like, ‘You’re right,’” Betts said on the “Bird’s Eye View” podcast on May 22. “I was like, ‘I am the fire hydrant today, and that’s OK.’”
Fast-forward to July 22, when Betts faced off with Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson — someone Betts had looked up to since Wilson’s college career at South Carolina. Betts scored 13 points to help the Mystics beat the Aces, and she even made a layup on the three-time WNBA Defensive Player of the Year.
“At the draft, I said, ‘Guys, if I score on A’ja Wilson, I will cry,’” Betts told reporters postgame. “I almost shed a tear. I almost did in the middle of the game, but I kept it together because I want to stay in the game. But … what a crazy experience to get to compete against one of your idols.”
Overall, the 6’7 Betts is averaging 6.6 points, 3.9 rebounds, 0.9 assists and 0.6 blocks in 16.4 minutes per game off the bench. And day by day, the No. 4 overall pick is building her confidence and getting increasingly comfortable at the professional level. That’s helped make the Mystics’ frontcourt one of the most imposing in the WNBA and helped put the league’s youngest team in playoff position as the calendar turns to August.
Betts has embraced her role backing up center Shakira Austin, and she has learned a lot from the Mystics’ 26-year-old veteran that has helped her adjust to pro basketball. Austin has given Betts and her teammates confidence boosts when needed and continually set the standard for the team.
“She expects the best out of me, and going into every game, I know that I have to finish. I know that I have to do the little things, play good D, because she expects that from me,” Betts said after a win over the Seattle Storm on July 12. “And I feel like she’s been a really consistent leader for us.”
Betts has scored in double figures five times this season, and the Mystics have won four of those games. She put up a career-high 18 points against the Toronto Tempo on June 12, and 13 in her lone start of the season against the Connecticut Sun on June 17. Against the Storm on July 12, she had 11 points, three assists, two rebounds, two steals and a block in less than 17 minutes, prompting head coach Sydney Johnson to describe her play as “Lauren Betts doing Lauren Betts things.”
“We keep telling everyone she’s really good, and she’s getting just more comfortable,” Johnson added. “… She’s just coming along, and I just think, man, between our four post players … the future’s really bright, and [for] Lauren as much as anyone.”
“When I went in, I was just focused on trying to play defense really well and just creating shots for other people and just getting deep seals,” Betts said. “So I feel like when I just play my game and I go in confident, I’m able to help the team win.”
Washington Mystics assistant coach Jessie Miller (left) talks with centers Shakira Austin (0) and Lauren Betts during a game against the Minnesota Lynx at Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn., on June 21, 2026. (Photo credit: John McClellan | The IX Sports)
Focusing on her game also means blocking out external pressures and continuing her day-to-day process. The transition from college to the WNBA is a whirlwind for every rookie, but especially for Betts, who won a national championship with UCLA on April 5, was drafted on April 13, moved cross-country and opened training camp on April 19.
Though comparisons are inevitable throughout players’ careers, especially between players from the same draft class, Betts recognizes that everyone has a different path to the pros and a different role on their team. So she isn’t comparing herself to No. 1 overall pick Azzi Fudd or No. 2 pick Olivia Miles. For her, the only comparison that matters is herself today versus herself of the past.
In that comparison, the current Betts is winning.
In June and July, she averaged 7.0 points, 4.2 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 0.7 blocks per game while shooting 55.7% from the field. Those numbers are up from 5.1 points, 2.7 rebounds, 0.3 assists, 0.4 blocks and 44.8% shooting in May. (Her minutes also increased from 13.4 to 17.4 per game, but her per-minute stats either stayed constant or increased.)
“At the beginning of the season, it was just figuring out her role in this different program,” rookie forward Angela Dugalić, who was also Betts’ teammate at UCLA, told The IX Sports on Tuesday. “… So that was just a process at first, but she put in a lot of time, obviously, on the court [and] in film sessions.
“And also I think [she’s] just building her own confidence up. I can go up to her and tell her, ‘I think you’re the best player in the world,’ and I do believe and say a lot of those things, but it has to come from within, and I think she’s done a great job of that.”
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Betts, the 2024-25 Naismith Women’s Defensive Player of the Year, has also gotten more comfortable with the Mystics’ defensive schemes and the WNBA’s defensive 3-second rule, which doesn’t exist in college. Those adjustments have helped her show more of what she can do defensively, including guarding on the perimeter, which she did sometimes in college but is now being asked to do at another level.
“I think a big thing coming from college to the W defensively is the bigs have to be more engaged,” point guard Georgia Amoore told The IX Sports on Friday. “You can’t park in the key anymore. … You have to be a bit more mobile. So she’s adapted really well to playing inside and out defensively. So she’s done amazing, and every challenge and opportunity that is given to her, she takes it and she crushes it.”
Washington Mystics center Lauren Betts (51) defends Connecticut Sun guard Charlisse Leger-Walker (4) during a game at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., on June 26, 2026. (Photo credit: Chris Poss | The IX Sports)
“I feel like [I’m] just trying to trust myself,” Betts said on July 22. “… The guards here are amazing every single night. So just going in, trusting my feet, knowing that I can move, and just meeting them at the rim and just trusting my instincts.”
While Betts is learning to trust herself in Washington, her coaches and teammates already do. Johnson has sometimes put the ball in her hands late in games, including when the Mystics were down by a point to Toronto with 11 seconds left on June 12. That eventually led to guard Sonia Citron hitting the game-winning jump shot at the buzzer.
“It’s not easy being a post in this league, but at the same time, nobody can guard her, and I have full faith in that,” Citron told The IX Sports on Tuesday, after Betts had 8 points and a career-high eight rebounds against the Sun. “And … when Lauren is aggressive, we are a better team.”
In part, the Mystics trust Betts because they see that she isn’t rattled by mistakes, which allows her to move on to the next play. On Tuesday, she had a sequence in the span of about a minute in the third quarter that showed that. First, Betts grabbed an offensive rebound of a shot the Mystics took with the shot clock expiring. But she got double-teamed and was tied up as she tried to get a shot off.
The Mystics won the jump ball and found Betts again, but a defender swiped the ball away as she went up for her shot. Seemingly unfazed, Betts rebounded the ensuing Sun miss and eventually lobbed a high-low pass to Iriafen, who missed the shot. On the Mystics’ next offensive possession, Betts called for the ball, got it, drew a foul on Sun center Olivia Nelson-Ododa and hit both free throws.
“She’s a fighter,” Johnson said. “She wants it. She competes. She doesn’t shy away from the moment. … She’s just a good player, and part of that is wanting to compete. And it takes a lot, especially when you’re a rookie and there’s so many things thrown at you.
“But I just appreciate how much she is bouncing back from … a turnover or a missed shot. We’re gonna call your number again. We’re gonna expect you to execute defensively on the other end, and we’re not going to lower the standards. And thankfully, we have a locker room of players like that. But this one is 6’7 and [has] pretty good hands and can move well, and we’re thrilled that she’s in D.C.”
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Betts has also managed to balance her whirlwind rookie season with several additional travel demands, while always keeping basketball at the forefront. Since mid-July alone, she’s made two trips to New York for the ESPY Awards and the Collegiate Women Sports Awards and flown to Chicago for WNBA All-Star weekend. (She won trophies at both awards ceremonies for her dominant senior season at UCLA.)
“She’s handled it like a champ,” Amoore said. “… Even though she might have driven from New York for four hours the day before or even the morning of practice, she still comes, she still brings her energy, and I think she never seems distracted. … She didn’t even talk about the ESPYS till after we [did] what we had to do [as a team].”
Asked how she’s juggled it all, Betts told The IX Sports on Tuesday, “Napping. Just taking naps. And just finding time, honestly, to just reset and get my mind right for everything.”
Mental health was also something Betts spoke about at the ESPY Awards, just as she did during her college career. She said in her acceptance speech that she wanted people to understand that she does struggle sometimes, but “protecting my peace has been the one thing that I’ve been as fierce about [as] chasing my dreams.”
The result is that Betts no longer lets her play on the court dictate how she feels about herself like she did early in her college career. Even if she goes scoreless, she knows her worth, and that gives her confidence and grounding. That outlook has been indispensable early in her professional career, and it has fit well on a Mystics team that has emphasized finding joy in the game and making incremental progress every day.
Washington Mystics center Lauren Betts (51) tries to get a shot off during a game against the Seattle Storm at CareFirst Arena in Washington, D.C., on July 12, 2026. (Photo credit: Hannah Kevorkian | The IX Sports)
Now, Betts is living out her dreams in the WNBA. The experience has been especially rewarding because it has her thinking back to her childhood and how her basketball dreams began. She was born in Spain, where her dad, Andy, was playing professionally. She often came to his games and could be found dancing with the mascots and cheerleaders during stoppages.
“I feel like my dad is the reason why I wanted to play basketball, and I’ve grown up watching him play professionally my entire childhood,” Betts said. “So I feel like this is kind of full-circle for me to be able to play professionally and him watching me.”
Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The IX Sports. The IX Sports’ editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.
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