The NBA’s draft lottery fortune has finally shone on the Washington Wizards, granting them the coveted No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft. The Wizards have had near-misses in previous drafts, falling just one ping-pong ball short of securing top picks for players like Zion Williamson in 2019, Victor Wembanyama in 2023, and Cooper Flagg in 2025.
The 2025 draft was particularly painful for the Wizards. Despite having the league’s second-worst record that season, they only secured a 14.5% chance at landing Flagg, ultimately selecting Tre Johnson with the sixth pick. This came after a historic streak where they lost at least 64 games for three consecutive seasons.
Since selecting John Wall as the No. 1 pick in 2010, the Wizards’ most notable lottery selections were Otto Porter Jr. at No. 3 in 2013 and Alex Sarr at No. 2 in 2024, both from relatively underwhelming draft classes.
In stark contrast, the 2026 draft class is bursting at the seams with potential superstars. Securing the top pick this year is a significant achievement, as the class is filled with prospects poised to transform franchises. Our latest projections suggest the Wizards might select BYU wing AJ Dybantsa. This draft also marks the final year of the current lottery system, which aims to benefit the teams with the poorest records.
The past seven drafts didn’t see the team with the worst record clinch the top pick, despite the odds system introduced in 2019. The Wizards, unabashed in their strategy, traded for Trae Young and Anthony Davis, rarely playing them, and benched their rookies and second-year players in critical moments, losing 26 of their last 27 games. However, this risky plan paid off handsomely for them.
The timing couldn’t be more opportune for the Wizards, as the lottery system is set for an overhaul next year. The proposed changes aim to discourage tanking by reducing the odds for the three worst teams to a mere 5.6% chance of obtaining the No. 1 pick, while teams ranked from fourth to tenth worst will enjoy an 8.1% chance. For more details on the upcoming changes, check the full proposal.
If the Wizards finish next season with a bottom-three record, things will have gone horribly wrong. More likely, they end up in that 4-10 range, which would be the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario in which a young team adds a franchise player, starts to experience winning and in doing so lays the foundation of an identity while also maximizing their chances at another high lottery pick in 2027. At which point they would really be cooking.
Under the new lottery format, the Wizards could actually make the play-in as the East’s No. 9 or 10 seed and, even if they make the playoffs from there, still retain a 5.4% chance at the No. 1 pick (the same as the worst three records). Even as a No. 8 seed in the playoffs, they’d still get lottery balls.
No matter what direction the Wizards decide to go next season, to me, landing in this 4-10 range, hopefully closer to 10, or in one of the play-in games is the most realistic outcome, even though the second that the lottery results were revealed Washington’s projected roster for next season started making the social media rounds as if to suggest the so-called scary hours are about to start.
They’re not. Yes, there’s name value with Young and Davis, but Young, as we’ve seen for years now, is not changing your prospects all that much. Davis, in all likelihood, either won’t be healthy or will be traded.
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Even if Davis stays put (he’s made it pretty clear he would prefer to play for a contender, and the Wizards are not that), the idea that Young is suddenly going to drive winning, and Davis is going to play in 65 games, and the Wizards are going to finish as a top-five-or-six seed in an Eastern Conference that is going to be tougher than it has been in years next season is something not too far south of a pipe dream. I would put the odds of that happening far longer than getting the No. 1 pick in the first place.
It’s not to say the Wizards shouldn’t be doing cartwheels right now. They should. They now have a plethora of options, and they’re all good ones.
Wizards’ roster-building options
- Take Dybantsa or Peterson at No. 1, keep Davis and Young, and field a competitive team next season while remaining in the hunt for another (hopefully high) lottery pick in 2027.
- Take Dybantsa or Peterson at No. 1, trade Davis, and still field a competitive enough team to win a decent number of games while all but assuring yourself of finishing in the 4-10 lottery range.
- Trade the No. 1 pick, which Jake Fischer of The Stein Line has reported as a possibility (this could just be a smoke screen to see how much the Jazz, who are picking No. 2, would really be willing to pay to select Dybantsa), which would give them access to multiple picks this season and beyond (while still getting a stud at No. 2 if a trade with Utah, for example, were to be struck) to add to their already deep roster of young guns. Again, this would almost assure them of a 4-10 lottery finish and yet another good pick in 2027 in addition to whatever assets they might attain in a trade for this year’s top pick, which would be plentiful to say the least.
Again, these are all good options for a team that has been largely devoid of such a thing for the last decade. Adding Dybantsa this year, and very possibly another lottery pick next year next year, to a young core of Alex Sarr, Tre Johnson, Kyshawn George, Bilal Coulibaly, Will Riley and Bub Carrington, all of whom are 22 years old or younger, represents a bright future. To bake Young and Davis into that cake provides hope for a win-now and win-even-bigger later parlay.
The only bad decision the Wizards can make here would be to sign Davis to the kind of extension he wants. He’s 33 years old. He’s on the books for $58.5 million next season with a $62.7 million player option for ’27-28. He wants to get rid of that option and ink one last big-money deal. The Wizards should not, under any circumstances, be the team to give it to him.
Personally, I’d be on the phone right now trying to trade him. He probably doesn’t have a ton of value, which is how the Wizards got him for next to nothing in the first place (of the two first-round picks they gave up for him, one is OKC’s and will be in the late 20s, and the other is Golden State’s in 2030 with a top-20 protection, which means it will also fall in the 20s or convert to a second-rounder), but make and take all the calls.
Davis should not be part of a long-term plan. At most, he helps you compete at a reasonable level next season and then you let him decide on the player option in ’27. If he wants to walk for nothing, fine. Again, you didn’t give up that much to trade for him anyway.
Before the Wizards landed this No. 1 pick, the trade for Davis felt a little impatient, even considering the low-risk swap. The Wizards were, and are, sick of losing, and wanted to fast forward with no long-term franchise player on the roster to dream on a longer timeline anyway.
But now they’re going to get that long-term star, which means Davis should absolutely be a short timer. One year and done at the most. Move on with what is suddenly a very intriguing crop of young players. Also, if the Wizards take Peterson at No. 1, you know Young is also not part of the long-term plan. But if they take Dybantsa, Young is a wait-and-see player. He’s still young and talented enough to play it out for a bit longer than Davis.
Again, these are all good options. Potentially great ones. Things have been seriously bleak for this franchise for a long time, but the Wizards finally struck lottery gold on Sunday and are now in position to start compounding their growth back to relevance and hopefully beyond.
