The Washington Wizards finally caught a break. After years of being the league’s most efficient losing operation, the Wizards won the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery and now sit on the clock for AJ Dybantsa, the BYU freshman who has emerged as the consensus number one overall pick.
This is the kind of franchise-altering moment Wizards fans have been waiting for. Washington has been in basketball purgatory for nearly a decade. The roster has been gutted. The veterans have been moved out. The picks have been stockpiled. The whole strategy was built around getting to exactly this moment, and the ping pong balls cooperated.
Dybantsa is the prize. The 6-foot-9 wing finished his freshman season at BYU as the best prospect in the country and the top pick in every credible mock draft. He has the size, the shooting, the playmaking, and the defensive versatility to be a franchise cornerstone. NBA executives have been openly comparing him to Paul George with better positional size and more upside.
The Wizards new front office, led by general manager Will Dawkins, can now build around a generational talent. Dybantsa pairs perfectly with the young pieces Washington has been collecting. Bub Carrington, Alex Sarr, and the rest of the development core finally get a true number one option to anchor the lineup.
The Wizards still have to make the pick. There is some discussion in league circles about whether Washington might explore a trade, especially with a top-four group of Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, and Caleb Wilson that NBA scouts view as relatively close in value. The most likely outcome is that the Wizards take Dybantsa and start the rebuild for real.
Darryn Peterson is the most interesting fallback if the Wizards do something creative. The Kansas guard had a monster freshman season and projects as a high-end primary scorer in the NBA. Cameron Boozer, son of NBA veteran Carlos Boozer, finished his Duke season as one of the best two-way forwards in college basketball. Caleb Wilson rounds out the top tier as a versatile wing scorer.
The Jazz, Grizzlies, and Bulls sit behind Washington in the lottery order, and all three have interesting decisions to make. Utah needs a primary scorer to pair with their young core. Memphis is figuring out the post-Ja Morant chapter. Chicago is still trying to figure out what it wants to be as a franchise.
The NBA Draft itself goes June 23 and 24. The combine has already produced its own news cycle, and the May 27 withdrawal deadline tomorrow will finalize the field. Several college standouts have already announced they are returning to school, including Malachi Moreno, Rueben Chinyelu, and John Blackwell.
The bigger story for the league is the depth of this draft class. The 2026 class is widely viewed as one of the deepest in years, with multiple potential All-Star players in the lottery and intriguing role players going deep into the first round. Front offices have been preparing for this class for two years. The tanking that fueled some of the regular season standings was the most overt the NBA has seen in a long time, and Washington was right at the center of it.
The Wizards have not had a true number one option since John Wall was healthy and dominant. Dybantsa would be the kind of building block who changes the trajectory of the franchise. The arena will sell out the night he makes his debut. The jerseys will sell themselves. The losing seasons will start to feel like they were worth it.
For now, Washington just has to wait three weeks and walk to the podium. The pick writes itself. The future has finally arrived in DC.
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.
