{"id":638,"date":"2026-06-24T06:08:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=638"},"modified":"2026-06-24T06:08:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:08:42","slug":"the-wizards-make-or-break-moment-has-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=638","title":{"rendered":"The Wizards\u2019 Make-or-Break Moment Has Arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"
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To be a Washington Wizards fan is to understand, at a bone-deep, cellular level, that your faith and fandom will forever be repaid in pain. It\u2019s not just the losing \u2014 the 48-year title drought, these last eight consecutive sub-.500 seasons, the staggering 196 losses over the past three campaigns \u2014 but the accompanying small humiliations that suck the soul from one\u2019s being and the foundational failures that can make it feel permanent.<\/p>\n

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This is a franchise that hasn\u2019t won a playoff series in nearly a decade; that since moving to D.C. from Baltimore in 1973 has produced just four homegrown all-stars; that over the past three seasons has strung together as many losing streaks of 14 games or more (five) as the rest of the NBA combined; that arguably hasn\u2019t featured a generational, Hall-of-Fame-type talent in the prime of their career since Wes Unseld a half-century ago.<\/p>\n

So Wizards fans can be forgiven for viewing Tuesday night\u2019s long-awaited windfall \u2014 the team\u2019s selection of forward AJ Dybantsa with the first overall pick of the NBA draft \u2014 not as an epochal turning point for a franchise on the rise, as it might be regarded elsewhere, but as just another trap door to fall through, dooming them to another generation of suckitude.<\/p>\n

As this was a draft without a clear-cut, slam-dunk top choice, the way Victor Wembanyama was in 2023 or Cooper Flagg was in 2025, it probably will be years before anyone knows whether the Wizards made the right pick in Dybantsa, a physical, 6-foot-9 dynamo who led the nation in scoring last season for BYU and who has both the game and the natural magnetism<\/span> to be a superstar in the NBA for a long time. <\/p>\n

But after everything this franchise and its beleaguered, bedraggled fan base have been through, it\u2019s not a choice this front office can afford to get wrong.<\/p>\n

Wizards fans, many of whom still remember the 2001 top pick squandered on all-time draft-bust Kwame Brown, come by their glass-half-emptiness honestly and organically. So it is only natural for them to view this pick not through the lens of how Dybantsa will transform their franchise, but how Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer \u2014 the two other players the Wizards were believed to have considered with the top pick \u2014 will go on to transform their own franchises, while the Wizards continue to sputter and smoke.<\/p>\n

But we are here today to tell you: It\u2019s OK to believe in the Wizards again. Truly.<\/p>\n

At the very least, the front-office braintrust that has been running the franchise\u2019s basketball operations since 2023 \u2014 team president Michael Winger and general manager Will Dawkins, both products of Sam Presti\u2019s Oklahoma City Thunder player-development juggernaut \u2014 have earned, no matter how difficult it is for a Wizards fan to grant it, the benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n

For the past three seasons, with the blessing of owner Ted Leonsis, Winger and Dawkins have overseen a wholescale teardown of the Wizards\u2019 roster. Their preferred term for the process is \u201cdeconstruction\u201d \u2013 which, granted, sounds better than \u201cgutting,\u201d \u201cdemolition\u201d or, heaven forbid, \u201ctank job\u201d \u2013 but no matter the terminology, the mission was undertaken with transparency and brutal efficiency: lose games by the dozen while stockpiling draft picks (including the No. 2, No. 6 and No. 1 overall picks in the past three drafts) and young talent. (The Wizards and a handful of other teams, in fact, were so good at tanking that the NBA recently changed the rules regarding the draft lottery for future seasons in an effort to prevent it.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our fans [who] have endured the most,\u201d Winger told reporters on the night last month when the Wizard won the NBA Draft Lottery to secure the No. 1 overall pick. \u201cAnd to me, this No. 1 pick is for them, [as] a reward for hanging in there with us [and for continuing] to support us despite some really bad basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

But suddenly, even the most jaded Wizards fans \u2014 is there any other kind? \u2014 can look at this roster and see the makings of a future contender, perhaps even (dare we say?) a 2026-27 playoff team.<\/p>\n

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Dybantsa joins a talented young core that already includes center Alex Sarr, forwards Will Riley and Kyshawn George and guards Tre Johnson, Bub Carrington and Bilal Coulibaly. And underpinning that group are veteran all-stars Trae Young and Anthony Davis, acquired earlier this year in moves that signaled the front office\u2019s belief the rebuild was preparing to turn a corner \u2014 and whose combined presence means the Wizards won\u2019t have to run their 2026-27 offense through Dybantsa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wizards\u2019 train is starting to leave the station,\u201d Dawkins told reporters at the end of last season, remarks that would have gotten a Wizards GM laughed out of the room at any other point in the past decade or so.<\/p>\n

When was the last time the Wizards projected anything resembling true, unfettered optimism? There are any number of acceptable responses, but we will go with halftime of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals on May 15, 2017, in Boston. John Wall\u2019s Wizards, having already dispatched the Atlanta Hawks in the first round and then played the Boston Celtics to a draw across the first six games, led Game 7 by a bucket at halftime and were 24 minutes away from advancing to the franchise\u2019s first NBA Finals since 1979.<\/p>\n

But the Celtics dominated the third quarter and went on to win by 10. The Wizards have not won a playoff series since. Wall would never make it through another healthy season. The Wizards\u2019 464 losses beginning in 2017-18 are the most in the NBA in that span, 30 more than Detroit.<\/p>\n

In fact, Wall\u2019s career in Washington, where he was the franchise\u2019s last No. 1 overall pick prior to Tuesday, provides a useful thought experiment for where the Wizards sit today.<\/p>\n

Wall, the top prize of the 2010 draft class, played parts of nine seasons for the Wizards, averaged 19.0 points and 9.2 assists during that stretch, was runner-up for rookie of the year, made five all-star teams, and took the Wizards to the playoffs four times and to the Eastern Conference semis in three of them before injuries did him in.<\/p>\n

If given the choice, would you take Wall\u2019s career arc for Dybantsa before the latter even suits up for his first NBA game? The accumulated trauma of the franchise\u2019s recent history \u2014 not to mention the example of 2001 top pick Brown, who averaged 6.6 points per game for his career \u2014 might make you consider it.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also permissible to dream bigger, to hold the franchise to the promise Winger made when he was introduced as team president in 2023: \u201cThe eventual expectation is we\u2019re going to build a generational talent,\u201d he said then. \u201c… Eventually, we\u2019re gonna hoist a trophy here in D.C.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Dybantsa becomes everything the Wizards\u2019 braintrust (and plenty of outside talent evaluators) thinks he will become, this could indeed be the start of a new era at Capital One Arena. (Surely, if the New York Knicks can win an NBA title, the Wizards can.)<\/p>\n

And if he doesn\u2019t? If he gets hurt, or flames out, or merely underachieves relative to Peterson and\/or Boozer? It won\u2019t feel like devastation or misery. More like resigned hopelessness. It is \u2014 and has been for generations \u2014 the Wizards fan\u2019s natural state.<\/p>\n

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AJ Dybantsa, the first overall pick in Tuesday’s NBA draft, gives a weathered Wizards fan base reason to believe again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Wizards\u2019 Make-or-Break Moment Has Arrived - Modern Home Journals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=638\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Wizards\u2019 Make-or-Break Moment Has Arrived - Modern Home Journals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AJ Dybantsa, the first overall pick in Tuesday's NBA draft, gives a weathered Wizards fan base reason to believe again.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=638\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Modern Home Journals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-24T06:08:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/533de239efc09a2ab59959cc1bff86d0\"},\"headline\":\"The Wizards\u2019 Make-or-Break Moment Has Arrived\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-24T06:08:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638\"},\"wordCount\":1259,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/afd7309d07bbcc3c8847887caeb2384e-scaled.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Sports\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638\",\"name\":\"The Wizards\u2019 Make-or-Break Moment Has Arrived - Modern Home Journals\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/afd7309d07bbcc3c8847887caeb2384e-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-24T06:08:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/533de239efc09a2ab59959cc1bff86d0\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=638#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/afd7309d07bbcc3c8847887caeb2384e-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/afd7309d07bbcc3c8847887caeb2384e-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707,\"caption\":\"AJ Dybantsa arrives for the first round of the NBA basketball draft Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in New York. 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