Stick and Pick? Shop Around? The Wizards Have Options at No. 1

Toward the end of their third straight season with fewer than 20 wins, the Washington Wizards issued a public apology for an April Fools’ Day halftime skit in which a “fan” was tricked into believing he made a half-court shot while blindfolded to win $10,000.

Facing backlash on social media from those unaware the skit was scripted and that the fan was in on the joke, the team conceded the prank “missed the mark.”

The episode was, in the online parlance of the franchise’s long-suffering fans, #SoWizards. Two months later, with the team making headlines for much better reasons and season-ticket sales reportedly up, all is forgiven.

The Wizards own the No. 1 pick in the June 23 NBA draft for the first time since 2010. And in another indication that the franchise’s days as a laughingstock may be behind it, Washington has been mentioned as a potential trade suitor for one of the league’s biggest stars (more on that later).

Most of the talk is about what the architects of the Wizards’ rebuild — team president Michael Winger and General Manager Will Dawkins — will do on draft day. Owning the No. 1 pick guarantees nothing (see: Brown, Kwame), but Washington at least possesses the luxury of choice.

What are their options? We asked NBA experts for their take.

Stick and Pick A.J. Dybantsa

BYU forward AJ Dybantsa and Kansas guard Darryn Peterson are widely considered the top talents in this year’s draft, and while neither is the same caliber of prospect as Victor Wembanyama when he went No. 1 in 2023 to the San Antonio Spurs, both have star potential.

The Wizards have a solid young core of recent first-round picks in Bilal Coulibaly, Alex Sarr, Bub Carrington, Kyshawn George, Tre Johnson and Will Riley. They acquired accomplished veterans in four-time all-star guard Trae Young and 10-time all-star center Anthony Davis before last year’s trade deadline. Now they have a chance to add a franchise cornerstone.

Dybantsa led the nation in scoring at 25.5 points per game. The 6-foot-9 wing is an explosive playmaker with the ability to create off the dribble, hit tough shots and guard multiple positions. At the NBA draft combine, Dybantsa posted a 3.14-second three-quarter court sprint time, which matched John Wall’s mark from 2010, and a 42-inch vertical leap.

“It’s very hard to see a world in which he is not a very good NBA player,” ESPN senior NBA writer Tim Bontemps said in a phone interview.

“When evaluating players this young, it’s always about balancing risk and reward,” NBA draft analyst Matt Babcock wrote in an email. “To me, and I think to most evaluators, the highest level of confidence is in Dybantsa’s long-term outlook.

The Athletic’s David Aldridge and Josh Robbins surveyed 13 NBA executives, scouts and front-office officials about Washington’s options, and of the 10 who were willing to name the player they thought the Wizards should pick, seven voted for Dybantsa.

“Don’t complicate it,” one of those voters told The Athletic.

Most mock drafters, including ESPN’s Jeremy Woo, The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie, CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish, The Ringer’s J. Kyle Mann and Yahoo’s Kevin O’Connor, have Dybantsa going No. 1.

Darryn Peterson, an elite combo guard prospect from Kansas, is another option at the top of the draft. Kevin Abele/Icon Sportswire/AP

Move Back for Darryn Peterson

One intriguing dynamic in this year’s draft is that the leadership of the Utah Jazz, who own the No. 2 overall pick, have long been enamored with Dybantsa. A Massachusetts native, Dybantsa has spent the last two seasons in Utah after transferring to Utah Prep for his senior year of high school and then starring at BYU. Jazz owner Ryan Smith is also a prominent BYU booster.

That has led many to connect the dots for a possible trade between Utah and Washington — allowing the Jazz to select Dybantsa first overall and the Wizards to receive additional trade compensation to move back one spot and select Peterson.

The 6-foot-6 Peterson was the favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the fall. An elite shooter with the ability to play either guard position, Peterson averaged 20.2 points per game while making 38.2% of his three-point attempts during his freshman season at Kansas. But he missed 11 games and was limited in others due to mysterious full-body cramping. Peterson recently told ESPN the condition was caused by high doses of creatine. (Several medical professionals interviewed by the Deseret News suggested that explanation raises more questions than answers.)

“There’s a lot of things that go into this, outside of the bounds of what we know, and I think that’s particularly the case this year with some of the medical stuff for Darryn Peterson,” Bontemps said.

Bontemps said the “highest upside play would probably be to take Peterson,” and pointed to the duo’s head-to-head matchup in January. Peterson outplayed Dybantsa in the first half of Kansas’s 90-82 win before exiting the game shortly after halftime.

“When Peterson is right, he is just a special three-level scorer,” Bontemps said. “I think there’s a higher ceiling with him.”

NBA draft analyst Jonathan Givony, who has watched Dybantsa and Peterson play on the same floor several times dating back to their high school days, said on “The Zach Lowe Show” that Peterson is “on another level talent-wise” and should be the pick.

Turn Heads With Another Option

Duke forward Cam Boozer and North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson are widely considered the third- and fourth-best prospects available, and not everyone is convinced it’s a two-horse race for No. 1.

The Athletic’s John Hollinger has Boozer atop his ranking of the draft’s top prospects and described the national player of the year as “basically ‘college basketball Nikola Jokić’’’ last season.

“The Wizards are a young, developing team with a versatile young core, so I think an argument could be made for any of the four,” Babcock wrote.

Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo could be on the move this offseason, but Washington is an unlikely destination Aaron Gash/AP

Trade for a Star

Beyond the prospect debate, veteran NBA reporter Marc J. Spears recently suggested that Washington would “explore their options” ahead of the draft, including a potential trade for Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. Notably, Spears didn’t report that the Wizards had expressed interest in acquiring Antetokounmpo, or that the “Greek Freak,” who will turn 32 this year, would want to play in Washington.

Neither Robbins nor Monumental Sports Network’s Chase Hughes see a blockbuster deal for Antetokounmpo as likely, and Hughes added he doesn’t see any scenario in which Washington would include this year’s No. 1 pick in a trade package to acquire the superstar. Still, the fact that the Wizards have amassed enough young talent and draft capital to put together an attractive offer is a sign that they’re headed in the right direction.

Robbins, a DMV native, has also noticed an uptick in excitement about the team he has covered for The Athletic since 2021.

“I’ve always believed that the Wizards have been sitting atop a powder keg of interest — albeit a powder keg that was dampened by 45-some years of false starts” since the franchise’s last NBA Finals appearance in 1979, he wrote in an email. “That interest needed a spark, and it appears that winning the lottery is that spark.”

The largest year-over-year improvement in Wizards franchise history came in 1968-69, when rookie center Wes Unseld, the No. 2 overall pick in the draft behind Elvin Hayes, led the Baltimore Bullets to 57 wins on the heels of a 36-win campaign. In a deep Eastern Conference, it will likely take a similar jump for Washington, which won 17 games last season, to end its five-year playoff drought.

“It would be a huge step forward just to make the play-in [tournament],” Hughes said. “But they now have the talent to do it.”