The Washington Wizards finally have a path back to relevance. His name is AJ Dybantsa, and he is going to be a Wizard in two weeks.
The Wizards won the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery with a 14 percent chance at the top pick, and Dybantsa has been the consensus No. 1 prospect on every credible big board for months. Barring something completely unexpected, Washington will call his name on June 23 when the draft opens at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN.
Dybantsa is the rare prospect who lived up to the hype in college. The 6-foot-9 wing spent one season at BYU and led the entire nation in scoring at 25.5 points per game. That is not an inflated number from playing weak competition. Dybantsa broke Danny Ainge’s 48-year-old BYU freshman scoring record with a 43-point game and was a problem against every defense BYU faced.
The pro comparison is generous. ESPN compared him to Jaylen Brown in their lottery breakdown. That is heavy company for a 19-year-old, but the parts of the comparison that make sense are obvious. Dybantsa is a wing who can score off the bounce, get to the rim, hit pull-up jumpers, and defend three positions.
His combine measurements only made the case stronger. Dybantsa has the physical tools NBA front offices dream about for a perimeter scorer. The shoulders, the wingspan, the foot speed. He looks like an NBA wing already.
For the Wizards, this is exactly the kind of pick the franchise needed. Washington has cycled through rebuild attempts, half-rebuilds, and accidental playoff teams for nearly a decade. The Bradley Beal era ended badly. The Kyle Kuzma era never really happened. The roster needed an actual centerpiece, not a complementary scorer.
Dybantsa fits the centerpiece description. He is the type of player you build around for a decade, the kind who can pull in free agents who would not have considered Washington a year ago. The Wizards have a winning combination of cap space, the No. 1 pick, and a clear runway for a top prospect to be the face of the franchise from day one.
The Utah Jazz at No. 2 are widely expected to take Darryn Peterson, the Kansas guard who has been a top-three prospect all season. The bigger debate is at pick No. 3, where multiple options remain on the table.
The NBA’s withdrawal deadline of June 13 is the last formal date for international prospects to pull out of the draft. By the time draft night arrives, the order at the top should be locked in.
Washington has not had a player like Dybantsa enter the building in years. He may not turn this franchise into a contender in 2026-27. He gives them a real reason to think about contending again. That alone is worth the No. 1 pick.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
