Wizards, at last, cash in their golden ticket and can finally get back in the NBA game

Atlantic76ersCelticsKnicksNetsRaptorsCentralBucksBullsCavaliersPacersPistonsSoutheastHawksHeatHornetsMagicWizardsSouthwestGrizzliesMavericksPelicansRocketsSpursNorthwestJazzNuggetsThunderTimberwolvesTrail BlazersPacificClippersKingsLakersSunsWarriorsScores & ScheduleStandingsThe Bounce NewsletterNBA DraftPodcastsFantasyNBA OddsNBA PicksMeet KAT's Biggest FanHollinger's Top Draft ProspectsLottery Reform Is OverdueWhat Makes Up Championship DNA?2026 NBA The Washington Wizards are hoping to complete their rebuild and contend soon, thanks to obtaining this year's No 1 draft pick. John Wall was the team's last No. 1 pick, in 2010. David Banks / Imagn Images Share articleCHICAGO — There was a scene in the great HBO special a few years ago “Reverse of the Curse of the Bambino,” when fans of the Boston Red Sox were asked about their emotions in the moments in 2004 when the Sox, after 86 years in the wilderness, finally, once again, won a World Series. They were … mostly silent. They couldn’t find the words to describe their emotions. A generation later, in a ballroom in Festival Hall, at the Navy Pier, neither could Michael Winger. The president of Monumental Basketball was the Washington Wizards’ person in the room where the ping-pong balls were drawn to determine the order for the 2026 NBA Draft. That room is hermetically sealed like a Chris Rock concert. You have to give up your cellphone, or PDA, or anything else with which you could electronically communicate what just happened to the rest of the world. So, when one of the Wizards’ 140 four-number combinations came up Washington’s way — 4-2-1-13 was the combination — Winger was in the room, with the 13 other lottery teams. On Sunday, 4-2-1-13 equaled one for the Wizards. As in No. 1; the No. 1 pick in what many believe is one of the deepest drafts in recent memory. The Wizards bagged “Moby Dick.” The organization’s president, though, was stoic afterward. “I think that, ultimately, it was just, it was our time,” Winger said. “It was our time to get that pick. Whether it’s because there’s a special athlete at the top of the draft that we want, or organizationally, we’re ready for a player like that, whatever the case may be.” General manager Will Dawkins, who’d been in the room the previous two years, was in the city for the NBA G League Combine. But he opted not to go to the drawing this time. Instead, the team rented a gym downtown, and Dawkins, a point guard at Emerson College, played four-on-four with the team’s scouts after the Wizards had completed their morning interviews with prospects from the G League. Their game was interrupted when the team’s vice president of strategic communications, Ketsia Colimon, came into the gym and let Dawkins know what just happened. “I think we ended 2-2,” Dawkins said. “We had to go home. We should have played Game 5.” Well, they had to deal with something else. The Wizards will do their due diligence and bring in as many of the top potential prospects for the first pick as they can. They surely will look hard at Kansas’ Darryn Peterson, North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson and Duke’s Cameron Boozer. But if they don’t take BYU’s A.J. Dybantsa first, I’ll eat my hat. (Wait. I don’t own a hat. I do, though, own a lot of baseball caps. OK, I’ll eat my cap.) For three years, the Wizards’ braintrust has circled 2026 as the draft. The one that could deliver them the level of player every team needs to compete at the highest levels of the NBA. You cannot honestly challenge the best teams and the best players if you don’t have your own killer, your own budding or arrived star, who not only has the talent to compete against the best but also the disposition. The Wizards have thought Dybantsa was that guy, the young player who could become their version of Anthony Edwards or Cade Cunningham or Cooper Flagg. And their fan base — which has waited decade upon decade for some sliver of hope, something that could connect their franchise to the part of the league that plays meaningful games in the spring, that’s on national television multiple times a year, that would consider a 50-win regular season as the bare minimum of being a “real” team, and not cause for a parade — can finally exult. The Wizards have a chance to, finally, matter again. So, too, will the Utah Jazz, who will pick second. I might be off, but when you give bad teams a chance to take the best young prospects, they usually get better. The Wizards should now exit the multiyear tank they’ve commandeered since 2023, when Winger and Dawkins came on board. And just in time. The NBA is cracking down on endless tanking, and the next two drafts don’t have this kind of potential star power at the top. The Wizards, in the last three drafts, will have picked second, sixth and first when they turn their card in June 23, the first night of this year’s draft. They can’t ask for more good fortune. Time to take the training wheels off and get back to the business of trying to win. Dybantsa should accelerate that timeline. Maybe not Night 1. But Washington, unless it completely loses the plot, will have at least eight or nine seasons to build up Dybantsa (or, maybe, just to be safe, Kansas’ Darryn Peterson) to become the best version of himself as a player while also putting a team around him that can contend year after year. “I think Michael and I, when we had the vision a few years ago, we wanted to give ourselves as many cracks at the apple as possible,” Dawkins said. “Year 2, we felt fortunate that we were able to stay where we were at. We were supposed to pick two, and we picked two. Last year, we were right at two and fell back to six. Disappointing, because you always want to be able to have the power of choice. And that’s what we have this year, which is why we’re really, really excited.” The 6-foot-9, 19-year-old Dybantsa is a three-level scorer who is utterly fearless. He wants the smoke. Now, he is far from fully formed. His defense is not where it needs to be. He will have his welcome to the NBA moments like everyone else who enters the association. But it is impossible to concoct a scenario in which he fails. He not only fits the timeline of the completion of the $800 million-plus renovation of Capital One Arena, set for fall 2028, but also could be, in time, the kind of connector who’ll get the best out of his contemporaries such as Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George and Tre Johnson. (Is Anthony Davis thinking a little differently about the franchise’s long-term forecast now? Who knows?) The Wizards were bitterly disappointed last year, when they had the second-best odds at the top pick and fell all the way to sixth, losing the chance at either Flagg or Dylan Harper. But 2026 was the year. “Even this time last year, I would agree that a lot of folks were crestfallen,” Winger said. “Because the number six sounds so much less interesting than the number one. A lot of folks in the front office, having studied these prospects, we knew we were going to get a high, high-level athlete at six. …” “My disposition, last year, probably wasn’t markedly different than this year. What I like about this year, of course, is now we don’t have to worry about someone else picking our preferred player. Now we get to pick our preferred player.” There was karma Sunday. John Wall represented the Wizards on the draft stage. Wall was the team’s last No. 1 pick, in 2010. He was a five-time All-Star who led Washington to the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference semifinals. After injuries and ill feelings on both sides made a divorce inevitable, the Wizards had to include a future first-round pick with Wall in 2020, when they traded him to the Houston Rockets for Russell Westbrook. That pick came with yearly protections, up to and including this year. It was that pick that Washington, at all costs, protected this season. By finishing with the worst record in the league, the Wizards kept their rights to the pick. That pick cashed in Sunday. No. 1. After three seasons of almost nothing but dread and sorrow, the NBA’s most woebegone franchise, for generations, finally had a moment to celebrate. The defining moment of the Wizards’ 2025-26 season will no longer be Bam Adebayo’s scoring 83 points against them. “I think we have a team dinner somewhere,” Winger said. “I’m sure it’ll be a lot of fun. And the wine will be passed around.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms