When the envelope opened Sunday night at Navy Pier in Chicago, and John Wall stood tall as the Washington Wizards were named the winner of the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery, something shifted in Washington.
Not a roar 鈥� more like a release. Three years of deliberate losing, 41-home-game slogs through some of the worst basketball this franchise has ever played, of asking season-ticket holders to endure the unwatchable in exchange for a promised future 鈥� all of it finally, mercifully, paid off in one moment.
Because the Wizards winning this particular lottery feels like the one that finally changes everything.
David Aldridge, a senior columnist with The Athletic who covers this league as well as anyone, , and put it simply: This is a basketball town that hasn’t had much to root for. He’s right, and the depth of that truth runs longer than most people realize.
“You look back at the history of basketball in D.C., going back into the ’50s 鈥� Dave Bing, Elgin Baylor played high school basketball here,” Aldridge said. “Georgetown and Maryland both won national championships. 鈥� But the one team that really wasn’t holding its weight was the Wizards and the Bullets. They just haven’t been good for half a century.”
Aldridge, who grew up watching this franchise, didn’t mince words about what Sunday meant.
“The last time this team won 50 games I was 14. That tells you how long ago it was,” he said.
Relief and excitement
Asked whether this lottery win feels like relief or genuine excitement, Aldridge didn’t hesitate.
“It’s both,” he said. “They tanked for three years to have 鈥� as many shots at a top pick as possible. In ’24, they drafted Alex Sarr. Last year, they fell from two to six 鈥� it was devastating. They really hoped to get Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper. This was the last chance, really, because the next couple of drafts just don’t have this kind of depth.”
海角精品黑料’s Dave Preston, who tracked the college landscape all season as an AP Top 25 voter, echoed that sentiment 鈥� and pointed to the fan cost of getting here.
“They’ve been unwatchable in stretches, and especially the finish 鈥� they lost 26 of 27 to end the year,” Preston said. “If you’re a fan, a season-ticket holder who’s sat through this 鈥� even though you understand the big picture 鈥� you’re still having to confront just the mess that’s out there, game after game after game. 鈥� It’s 41 home games and 48 minutes of watching this.”
The prospect: Why Dybantsa?
The consensus answer to “who do you take?” wasn’t complicated. BYU forward AJ Dybantsa 鈥� 6-foot 9-inches tall with a wingspan over 7 feet and the nation’s leading scorer at 25.5 points per game 鈥� is the pick.
Aldridge, who has sources inside the Wizards’ front office, was direct: “They really like AJ Dybantsa. They really do. It will be hard for me 鈥� unless there is a real red flag that nobody knows about 鈥� to see them not taking that guy that they have talked about quietly for the last two years as the one they think can be special.”
His reasoning goes beyond raw talent. Dybantsa fits the physical archetype the Wizards have been deliberately assembling.
“Positionally, six-nine, long, athletic, exactly the type of player they’ve been amassing,” Aldridge said, pointing to Bilal Coulibaly, Kyshawn George, Alex Sarr, Will Riley and Tre Johnson as examples. “They’re all the same guy. They’re long, athletic, switchable positional players. And Dybantsa is that guy, plus a guy that can get to the front of the rim and finish. They don’t have that.”
Preston pointed to a specific stretch that convinced him Dybantsa is the pick: “There was one week where they played Iowa State after playing Arizona on the road 鈥� two top-10 teams at the time. He more than held his own. And it wasn’t as though he was playing with a ton of talent around him.”
That consistency against elite competition, back-to-back nights, without a breather was the proof of concept.
“He proved his mettle against high-level competition (in quick succession),” Preston said. “After playing at Arizona, he went straight into another ranked opponent. 鈥� That really told me this guy isn’t just a numbers manufacturer; this guy is a player.”
What translates immediately: The ability to get to the foul line, the shot creation, the passing instincts. Preston noted a nine-assist game in the Big 12 Tournament.
“He’s been able to be a facilitator. He’s not going to run point, but there’s another passer in the post 鈥� and with the way this Wizards team is constructed, it’s good to have guys who can pass, who can provide a secondary jump-start to a possession,” he said.
What still needs work: 3-point shooting (33% this season) and defensive engagement
“He’s not where you want him to be defensively,” Aldridge acknowledged. “But I don’t think it’s because physically he can’t do it. He’s just not been asked to defend.”
Given that Washington already has Sarr (second in the league in blocks this season), Coulibaly and Anthony Davis as defensive anchors, Dybantsa won’t need to carry that weight early.
Don’t count on a trade down
Despite reports , Aldridge and Preston were both emphatic on this point: Trading back isn’t in the Wizards’ best interest.
“I think it’s a very, very low chance,” Aldridge said. “This front office, with (President of Basketball Operations) Michael Winger and (General Manager) Will Dawkins running the show, they’ve been very intentional. They want to affirmatively say, ‘With the first pick, this is the guy we believe will be the face of the franchise.’ That’s different from trading to two and waiting to see which guy is there. That’s not the same thing.”
“For what they’ve done the last couple seasons to crater their way toward this pick, it would be very interesting if they said, ‘You know what? No, we’ll do this another time,'” Preston added.
Asked to name a trade-down target, Preston offered Keaton Wagler of Illinois: 6-foot-6, a 40% shooter from 3-point range who could stretch the floor.
The rebuild timeline
During last season, the Wizards traded veteran All-Stars Trae Young and Anthony Davis, who have yet to play alongside each other. So how does picking Dybantsa affect them?
“I don’t think it affects Trae Young at all. I think he gets an extension,” Aldridge said. “Davis? We’ll see. I don’t know how you just walk away. You don’t even know what you have yet. You haven’t seen this team play together. They never played a minute together.”
His pitch to Davis’ camp: Give it a year, see what this team actually is and then decide.
As for a realistic timeline, Aldridge was measured.
“Everybody has their welcome-to-the-NBA moment,” he said. “But by the end of next season, he’s going to be growing at an accelerated rate.”
The Wizards’ new floor is a playoff-range team 鈥� seventh through 10th in the East 鈥� as soon as this next season, with the right health and continuity.
“This is a huge pick. This is going to be an exciting time,” Preston said.
The 2026 NBA Draft Combine runs through May 17 in Chicago. The draft itself is June 23 and 24 in Brooklyn, New York.
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