BROOKLYN — As I walked the streets of Manhattan a few hours before the start of the NBA draft on Tuesday, I crossed paths with a fellow 20-something who was decked out in an early 2000s-era Washington Wizards shirt and vintage Washington Bullets hat.
“Big night tonight,” I said, referring to his Wizards holding the No. 1 pick in the draft.
The shameless superfan lit up with contagious delight. “AJ Dybantsa no matter what!” he exclaimed, his voice ripe with raw emotion and adrenaline.
His wish came true about eight hours later, as Washington did indeed select BYU’s Dybantsa at the top of a widely acclaimed draft class.
Based on different videos of D.C.-area draft parties and other online reactions, it’s safe to say Wizards fans were thrilled with the pick. Wherever he was, I’m sure my new Manhattan friend was smiling.
Dybantsa, who arrived in Washington on Wednesday, will get to meet some of those fans Thursday at a pep rally sponsored by the team, where Dybantsa says he’s excited to interact with them and “kind of show my personality.”
Whether he fully realizes it yet or not, Wizards fans won’t view Dybantsa as simply their new top draft choice or a deserving No. 1 pick. Dybantsa is now the face of a franchise long starved for relevance, let alone success; the grand prize for an elaborate rebuilding effort attempting to bury a past half-century largely filled with frustration and futility.
Washington has not won 50 games in a season nor reached the Eastern Conference Finals since 1979 — back when the team was still known as the Bullets, and before the Jazz arrived in Utah or the NBA even had a 3-point line.
The team’s most recent first-team All-NBA selection came in 1981, which was also the last season Washington employed a player whose jersey has been retired by the organization.
Since capturing the NBA championship in 1978, the Bullets/Wizards have compiled the most losses in the league (2,252) while posting the lowest total win percentage (42%). They’ve won just five of their past 22 playoff series and haven’t finished over .500 since 2018.
But it’s not just the losing for Washington. It’s the seemingly constant stream of sideshow misfortune.
Beleaguered
The team’s beloved Bullets branding was scrapped in 1997. They made the disastrous mistake of trading Chris Webber in 1998. Kwame Brown was a major whiff at No. 1 overall in 2001.
Bringing Michael Jordan out of retirement in ’01 didn’t move the needle at all and was largely a bust. MJ could beat a superteam of aliens with Bugs Bunny and Bill Murray as his supporting cast in “Space Jam,” yet couldn’t win in D.C.
Gilbert Arenas blew out his knee just before the playoffs in 2007, then brought a gun in the locker room a few years later to derail his career and trigger a damning 2025 Netflix documentary.
The Wizards famously passed on both Steph Curry in 2009 and Kawhi Leonard in 2011. John Wall ruptured his achilles after slipping and falling in his own home in 2019, and in 2022 Bradley Beal received perhaps the most ridiculed supermax contract in league history.
Just 106 days ago, the Wizards allowed Miami’s Bam Adebayo to score a mind-boggling 83 points against them. 83 points!
And this past Monday, when Washington gave Trae Young a four-year, $212 million extension that definitely wasn’t the smartest decision but also wasn’t completely foolish, the rest of the NBA relentlessly mocked and laughed at the move anyway, mainly because they’re the Wizards.
You get the picture. It’s been a hard-knock basketball life for Washington over the past five decades.
Centerpiece addition
But in Dybantsa, the Wizards brass sees a player who can be the centerpiece of an effort to climb out from the cellar.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic have given Milwaukee and Denver entirely new franchise identities — and championships — in the past decade. Perhaps Dybantsa is the next such generational talent to work similar wonders in Washington.
“He’s primed for it just because I think his parents have done a great job raising him, they’ve clearly prepared him for the spotlight,” BYU coach Kevin Young told the Deseret News at the draft in Brooklyn, referring to Dybantsa’s potential to win with the Wizards.
Ready for next level
“He knows how to act. He knows how to represent himself, his family and an organization. When you’re making a pick that (Washington) just made, you want somebody to come in and be the face of the franchise in so many different ways, not just on the court. That was something I said to every executive that asked me about him, ‘Look, you’re not going to find a better guy to represent your organization with how he carries himself.’ So I think he’s going to be phenomenal in that role.”
Dybantsa has spoken repeatedly about how he feels playing for Young has prepared him for NBA competition — but his unique experience at BYU now seems to have served as intensive training to shoulder the mantle of Washington’s basketball hopes and dreams.
“He knows how to act. He knows how to represent himself, his family and an organization. When you’re making a pick that (Washington) just made, you want somebody to come in and be the face of the franchise in so many different ways, not just on the court.”
— BYU coach Kevin Young on AJ Dybantsa
It was a huge deal when Dybantsa committed to the Cougars. Before the “KY” era, five-star guys like Dybantsa never went to BYU, so the novelty of him going there essentially put a target on his back.
His arrival brought acclaim and expectations. He lived under a microscope, being granted little room for error. Any minor shortcoming would be thoroughly criticized. Many accused him of going to BYU solely for the money. There was no shortage of naysaying, nitpicking and noise.
And Dybantsa handled it all gracefully, leading the nation in scoring, earning first-team All-American honors, fully embracing BYU life, and never complaining once, even when times got tough on the court for the Cougars. He passed every test and never let the weight of everything squash him.
All of that has prepared Dybantsa to be handed the keys to the Wizards franchise from Day 1.
“I’m just trying to take my leadership (from BYU to Washington),” Dybantsa told the Deseret News Tuesday night. “When Richie (Saunders) went down, I had to be more of a vocal leader. Even though I’m a rookie, I’m still going to try to voice my opinion and use my voice.
“... We have a lot of young guys in D.C., now including myself, who are up and coming and showed a lot of growth and strides in the past season. I think we’re gonna be alright.”
Even with a longtime NBA lull, the greater Washington area truly loves basketball. It’s home to some of the most historically dominant hoops high schools in the country. When local colleges like Georgetown, Maryland or George Mason are winning, you can feel it around town.
Hall of Famers such as Elgin Baylor, Adrian Dantley and Grant Hill all hail from the “DMV,” and current superstar Kevin Durant is a son of Washington as well.
The Wizards do currently possess a future Hall of Famer in Anthony Davis, along with another multi-time All-Star in Young, whose presence should make Dybantsa’s on-court arrival a bit less demanding, at least initially.
Whatever Washington needs from Dybantsa, however, he’s willing to offer, even if it means playing a different role than he did at BYU.
‘Two-way abilities’
“I think I bring versatility,” Dybantsa told reporters on draft night. “Obviously (Washington) re-signing Trae, having (Anthony Davis), I think I can just fit in as like an off-ball guy that can score in different ways, score in transition, score off the catch, score off the dribble. But also they challenged me, when they talked to me, like, ‘If we pick you, we want you to play defense 94 feet and pick up.’
“... If they want me to be strictly a defender, I think I can do that. If they want me to be strictly offensive, I can do that. But I think I can bring two-way abilities, being able to score off the catch, dribble. I’ve been working on my catch-and-shoot threes a lot and trying to guard the best player.”
Dybantsa is now the crown jewel of what many believe to be an ascending young core in Washington, which also features last year’s No. 6 pick Tre Johnson, 2024’s No. 2 selection Alex Sarr and other promising pieces in Will Riley, Kyshawn George and Bilal Coulibaly, just to name a few.
“(The Wizards) have an influx of talent, and at the end of the day, basketball, especially the NBA, is about talent,” Young said. “You can throw AJ in that mix, along with the other good young players that they have, and AJ brings versatility. I think he can do a lot of different things, but I think he fits in well with that group.
“... If he has the ball in his hands, he’s going to be able to make plays for other guys, especially with the way the court is spaced and the way that they officiate the game. I think he’s just going to have a field day, the sky’s the limit for his playmaking ability.”
