{"id":3176,"date":"2025-07-03T16:12:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/?p=3176"},"modified":"2025-07-03T16:12:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:12:35","slug":"shakira-austin-is-back-and-finally-playing-the-game-her-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/03\/shakira-austin-is-back-and-finally-playing-the-game-her-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakira Austin Is Back\u2014and Finally Playing the Game Her Way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For much of the early season, Shakira Austin was still finding her footing\u2014recovering from injury, managing minutes, and working her way back into form.

But in late June, the Washington Mystics center made a statement. The WNBA named Austin Eastern Conference Player of the Week<\/strong> for games played from June 16 to June 22, the first such honor of her career. And with it came a clear message: she\u2019s not just back, she\u2019s rising.
<\/strong>
Over that three-game stretch, Shakira Austin averaged 19.3 points, 8.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 2.3 blocks, and 2.0 steals, while shooting 58.5% from the field. She was the only player in the league to average at least 17 points, 2 assists, 2 blocks, and 2 steals during that span.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her breakout performance came on June 20 against the Atlanta Dream, when she posted a career-high 28 points (13-17 FG), 10 rebounds, three assists, three steals, and two blocks. It was her first double-double of the season\u2014and a historic one at that.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She became the youngest player in WNBA history to post 28+ points, 10+ rebounds, 2+ blocks, and 2+ steals while shooting 75% or better from the field, joining Sylvia Fowles and Liz Cambage as the only players to ever do it.

Austin followed that up with 21 points and seven rebounds in an overtime win against Dallas, notching back-to-back 20-point games for the first time in her WNBA career.

A New Chapter Under a New Coach
<\/strong>
Shakira Austin\u2019s breakout isn\u2019t just about her physical comeback<\/a>, it\u2019s about the culture shift around her. Now in her fourth season, she\u2019s playing with a renewed sense of belief and freedom under first-year head coach Sydney Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is year four for me. It’s just been totally different,\u201d Austin told Double Take Sports<\/em> about her experience with coach Johnson. \u201cIt’s something that I’ve been waiting for pretty much my whole career. It is just someone who can uplift, believes in you\u2026That positive energy that just radiates from him. Like, we all want to carry that, and we all just want to go out there and really just hoop for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She didn\u2019t hold back her appreciation for the Mystics’ new tone-setter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo just shout out to coach. He’s really set the tone and set the standard. Like Slim [Brittney Sykes] said, it started from the higher ups, of course, but, you know, they really brought in a great dude who’s coming here and really just taking the energy for D.C. right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That energy has translated into real momentum, not just for Austin, but for a young roster hungry to compete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following her Player of the Week stretch, Austin added 18 points in a rematch against the Dallas Wings on June 28. She has now scored 10+ points in five straight games, the third-longest such streak of her career, highlighting her consistency as a two-way threat and vocal leader on the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through 12 games (three starts), Austin is averaging 11.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, 1.2 assists, and 1.0 block, with those numbers trending upward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is also the first Mystic to earn Player of the Week honors<\/strong> since Elena Delle Donne in 2022<\/strong>, a symbolic shift for a team building a new core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Washington continues to retool with youth and energy<\/a>, Austin looks more and more like the player, and the personality, they can build around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shakira Austin isn\u2019t just back, she\u2019s thriving under Coach Sydney Johnson, scoring 10+ points in five straight games and emerging as the leader the Washington Mystics need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[67],"tags":[173,29,172,102,26],"class_list":["post-3176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mystics","tag-eastern-conference-player-of-the-week","tag-features","tag-shakira-austin","tag-washington-mystics","tag-wnba"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC03173-scaled-e1751558600555.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3176"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3180,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3176\/revisions\/3180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}