AJ Dybantsa Is the Clear Favorite to Go No. 1 to the Wizards. Here Is Why Washington Has to Take Him.
The 2026 NBA Draft is two days away, and the only real suspense at the top of the board is whether the Wizards are smart enough to take the player everyone else thinks they should take.
AJ Dybantsa, the 19-year-old forward out of BYU, is the betting favorite to go No. 1 overall when the Wizards officially open the draft on Tuesday night at Barclays Center. The odds are not close. FanDuel Sportsbook has Dybantsa at -450, meaning the rest of the prospect class combined has shorter odds than the field would suggest.
This is the right pick. Washington won the lottery after losing 26 of their final 27 games last season, and they earned this top pick by being one of the worst teams in basketball. Now they have to convert that misery into a generational talent, and Dybantsa is the closest thing the 2026 class has to one.
The numbers from his one season at BYU were ridiculous. Dybantsa averaged 25.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 3.7 assists while shooting 51 percent from the field. That is a 19-year-old freshman wing producing efficiency numbers that most NBA wings cannot match in their primes. The frame is real. The handle is real. The shot is improving.
The Wizards do not have the kind of roster that should make this decision complicated. Bub Carrington has shown flashes. Bilal Coulibaly is a young, athletic wing with defensive upside. Alex Sarr is the big man piece. Adding Dybantsa to that group gives Washington a four-player young core that can grow together over the next half-decade.
The argument for considering anyone else at the top of this draft is thin. There are interesting prospects. Cameron Boozer is a polished college player with NBA bloodlines. Darryn Peterson is a high-upside guard. But the gap between Dybantsa and the rest of the class is the kind of gap that does not show up every year, and the Wizards would be smart to not overthink it.
This is also the part of every NBA Draft where teams trade away high picks and then regret it for a decade. The Wizards are reportedly fielding calls about moving down. That is a normal part of the process. The right answer in this case is to politely listen and then hang up.
Trading down for assets makes sense when you have a No. 4 or No. 5 pick and you can pick up a future first to slide back a few spots. It rarely makes sense when you have the No. 1 pick in a class with a clear top prospect. The franchise-changing player is at the top of the board. You take him. You build around him. You worry about the cap and the role players later.
Washington has been stuck in basketball purgatory for most of the last decade. They have not won a real playoff series since the John Wall era, and they have spent the years since trying to find a new direction. Dybantsa is the chance to actually have one.
The draft itself runs across two days, with the first round Tuesday and the second round Wednesday. Cooper Flagg’s old college program at Duke just made it past the early rounds of the NCAA tournament. The whole basketball world will be watching to see how this class shapes up beyond the top pick.
But the top pick is the only one that really matters for Washington. The Wizards have a chance to do this right. Take Dybantsa, build the team around his timeline, and stop trying to be clever with a No. 1 pick that should be the easiest decision in the room.
Two days. Then we find out if the Wizards are paying attention.
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.
