WASHINGTON — Move over Ivory Latta, there’s a new 3-point queen in Washington D.C. On Tuesday against the Seattle Storm, Ariel Atkins surpassed the long-time Washington Mystic to become the franchise’s leader in 3-pointers made.
She’s the second active Mystic to hold the record in a major statistical category (joining Natasha Cloud in assists).
Atkins hit the three No. 309 like she has many in her career – off a pass from Cloud as a catch-and-shoot shot. She’s been within striking range of the record for over a week, given her acumen. Injuries to teammates changed her role over the past few games as well as some shooting struggles she’s faced this year. Her 308th 3-pointer came on Sunday in a loss to the Connecticut Sun to tie Latta.
Following her record-breaking 3-pointer against Seattle, it was announced inside the Entertainment and Sports Arena. Trying to stay out of the spotlight and focus on the task at hand, Atkins tried not to give it any attention. A pretty on-brand reaction for the business-like approach she brings to the game.
Needless to say, the rest of her teammates had other plans and got her to break and celebrate.
“Literally no reaction at all,” Shatori Walker-Kimbrough said postgame. “She was more focused on the play that coach was drawing, which is great. But like I said, I’m glad we got to celebrate that for her, just taking a moment to celebrate that and her hard work is a great accomplishment.”
“I was like, ‘you’re going to wave to these people,'” Cloud said. “No, I just want [Ariel] to receive her flowers. I don’t think players enough while they’re playing in their careers, received the flowers that they deserve. So to get that accolade tonight, right before All-Star break… I just wanted to celebrate her, well-deserved accomplishment.”
Achieving this feat is normally a career-long achievement award. But at just 26 years old and six seasons with the organization, she is in the annals of the franchise’s history with so much more to give to the game. Washington is the only team she’s ever played for in the WNBA since being drafted by the Mystics with the seventh overall pick in 2018. With the trajectory of her career and the contract she’s on, it doesn’t appear that will change anytime soon.
Atkins’s first role in D.C. was as a prototypical three-and-D guard on a championship-built team. It was exactly what Washington needed as the team made their first push to the WNBA Finals in 2018 and eventually a championship the following season. She was slotted into a lineup that featured Kristi Toliver in her prime, Cloud, Elena Delle Donne and LaToya Sanders.
Her job was really simple coming into the organization: hit shots behind the WNBA 3-point line. She’s been letting them fly ever since.
“Ariel’s like pretty literal. You tell her to do something, she’s going to try to do it,” head coach Eric Thibault said last week. “She came in as a rookie on a competitive team and right off the bat was not afraid to take open shots, big shots. And she makes shots, man, like it sounds really simple but she has, I think, pretty unwavering confidence in her ability to shoot the ball. And we’ve seen her make tough ones, we’ve seen her make open ones. She’s pretty unflappable in that regard. And you put yourself in that position as a rookie on a team that ended up going to the finals and ball comes out from a double from Elena Delle Donne and there’s like a certain amount of pressure on having to make those shots and it just doesn’t faze her.”
Making those shots, in addition to her defense, earned her a starting role her rookie year – a job she’s never relinquished.
But her involvement in the offense has evolved over time. Missing Elena Delle Donne and Natasha Cloud in the 2020 ‘wubble,’ Atkins naturally become one of the leaders on the roster. Not only did we see that in her statistical numbers and the best 3-point shooting season of her career (41.1%), but also in her voice by having a bigger presence when speaking on social issues.
The player Atkins passed, Latta, got to the top of the leaderboard in a far different route than her successor. D.C. was the final stop for the two-time All-Star’s career. She was more of an on-ball scorer and able to get shots off quickly on set actions. Still, Thibault sees the similarities as to why both are first and second on the Mystics record book.
“Some similarities, both fearless shooters,” Thibault said. “Ivory and Ariel both just they’re not got pass up open shots, which is great. Ivory was maybe more top of the floor, pick-and-roll heavy, shoot them off the bounce. Could shoot them off the move and off the catch. Ivory and I always had a running joke about when she bobbled the ball, she shot like 90 percent. Like any time she’d bobbled it on the pickup or on the catch, she’d always make it and she would always turn and point and laugh at the bench when she’d do it.
“But Ariel’s an interesting one in that, she started off her career pretty much shooting corner threes in our offense and has evolved and done more and become more of a focal point. So that’s been fun to watch that evolution.”
This year has been one that has seen Atkins’ long-ball shooting go through many ups and downs. She’s currently shooting a career-low 33.3% which is still fifth-best on the team’s roster. The struggles she shrugged off as non-issues, knowing that the shot that she has relied on throughout her career would finally drop more regularly.
As she crept closer and closer to the mark, Atkins was unaware of what she was on the precipice of accomplishing. Her teammates were pretty in the dark too.
“Um, it’s pretty cool,” Atkins said when she was five 3-pointers away from tying the record. “When I first got here, [Mike Thibault] was just in my ear, I mean he was in everybody’s ear, about shooting. I feel like one practice we only shot threes and I thought it was the craziest thing. But his goal for our organization was to be a team that’s able to space the floor. So it feels really good to know that I can contribute to my team in that way. But it’s also a testament to my teammates because I say it all the time, like them finding me on the back side, my early years in my career, has been huge.”
Latta had previously held the record for nearly eight years. The 11-year WNBA player passed Alana Beard’s 220 threes on Sept. 2, 2015 – ballooning the new record to 308 before retirement. Atkins now has the chance to grow that new franchise mark even further, proving that she is one of the franchise pillars for years to come.
“[Ariel] ain’t even scratched the surface. She just started to tap into whatever makes her great,” Brittney Sykes said. “And I feel like around that five, six-year mark is when you start to kind of like settle down. You kind of know where your spots are. You kind of know what works for you, what you need to continue to work on. But I won’t even call it a prime, it’s like a pre-prime and then it’s like you start hitting their stride and then towards playoffs, that’s when you probably will see, like true prime.”
Atkins was not made available to the media following the game due to an ankle injury she suffered in the second quarter. Shuffling over in coverage on Jewell Loyd, she appeared to step on Queen Egbo’s foot and rolled it pretty badly. The guard laid was tended to on the court for several minutes before being carried to the locker room by trainers and the injured Kristi Toliver.
It marks the sixth Mystic that has suffered an injury/ missed time due to injury recovery over the course of the season. That counts to 23 games lost this year. She and the rest of the team will have the All-Star break to recover and build off their 11-8 record.
“I mean soon as she walked in here, she was a pro,” Myisha Hines-Allen said at practice. “I’ve known [Ariel] since high school, [Ariel]’s been a pro since high school to me. The way she carries herself is just like, she’s about her business, she’s straightforward, to the point… If I could just be in her head for a little bit to see how she like thinks, like youcan understand how she thinks. She’s different, but like, nah, [Ariel]’s amazing.”