Longtime Mystics fans discouraged by team's downward spiral The Mystics are celebrating their 15th anniversary this year in the midst of one of the more bizzare first-to-worst freefalls women's basketball has ever seen. Attendance at games has dropped and the team will once again lose money this season. Meanwhile, all the losing has upset some longtime fans who have begun to wonder if the Mystics will ever become a consistent winner. "It's disrespectful, really," said Brooks, citing the $875 she pays for season tickets. I may give mine up if there's not a drastic change. Losses pile up Following the 2010 season, in a cost-cutting move, Mystics managing partner and president Sheila Johnson did not re-sign general manager Angela Taylor and coach Julie Plank, the duo responsible for assembling a team that had just finished atop the Eastern Conference standings for the first time in franchise history. Since then, the Mystics have spiraled into the worst 51-game stretch in team history, including a 3-14 mark this season that is tied for the worst record in the WNBA. The Mystics face the Liberty today in New York in the team's last game before a month-long break for the Summer Olympics. But almost two years later, the exact reasons why Taylor and Plank were not retained remain muddled. Johnson cited Washington's struggling business model when she promoted Trudi Lacey, the team's director of basketball operations, to replace both Taylor and Plank. But Johnson noted in an e-mail to The Post this week that the team tried to negotiate a new contract with Taylor, and then offered the dual GM/coach position to Plank, who turned it down. Soon thereafter Lindsey Harding and Katie Smith, the team's starting backcourt in 2010, both requested trades. Harding, who helped lead the Atlanta Dream to the WNBA Finals last year, said this week that until Taylor and Plank were let go she had "no thought or intention of leaving D.C." Taylor, who no longer works in the WNBA and lives in Northern California, declined to comment on the negotiations out of respect for current players on the team that she helped bring to Washington. Plank, who is also currently out of the WNBA, could not be reached by telephone for comment. This season, six of the WNBA's 12 teams have one person as general manager and coach. "For the most part, personnel decisions and discussions are confidential - there is a limit to how open we can be about those conversations," Johnson wrote. We needed to respect the process and the people involved. Lacey, who became the team's 12th coach and sixth GM in 15 years, has made a series of questionable moves in her attempts to re-build the roster.