Hanifan’s offseason outlook: Evaluating the Washington Wizards’ 2026 offseason

The calendar has turned to September. You know what that means, right?! Our offseason outlook series is back for the third-straight year!

Hot Hot Hoops senior writer Matt Hanifan will provide his take on the offseasons of all 30 teams for the next 30 days! We will be going in alphabetical order, beginning with the Eastern Conference. Today, we will look at the Washington Wizards’ summer!

Previous offseason outlooks:

Evaluating the Washington Wizards’ 2026 offseason:

Additions: D’Andre Ayton, Tre Mann, Khris Middleton

Subtractions: D’Angelo Russell, Cam Whitmore, Jaden Hardy, Sharife Cooper, Anthony Gill, Julian Reese

Re-signed: Trae Young

Draft: AJ Dybantsa (No. 1 overall), Felix Okpara (No. 46)

Hanifan’s outlook: Ironically enough, in the last year of the current lottery system, the Washington Wizards scored the most luck.

While it was not as much as Bam Adebayo’s 83-point game against them, Washington, who has won just 50 combined games over the last three seasons, became the only team with the top lottery odds to earn the No. 1 pick since the new system was put into place in 2019. That culminated in them drafting BYU wing AJ Dybantsa in June’s draft, and I believe that will be a home run pick.

It was a fairly easy one to make — and that comes from someone who was a huge fan of both Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer. Both of those players are No. 1 picks in most drafts, but Dybantsa separated himself throughout the middle of the 2025-26 college basketball season, especially in conference play.

However, I wasn’t a huge fan of everything else they did. While Trae Young will unquestionably help set up their young players offensively, I was not a fan of extending him for $212 million. Regardless of where you are at in the rebuild cycle, that is a lot of money to give to a player who can only play one end of the floor. Young is an elite playmaker, but I don’t think a long-term investment — barring a potential trade 2-3 years into his contract — is wise. Adding Deandre Ayton as Anthony Davis/Alex Sarr insurance is OK, as is drafting Felix Okpara, who may spend most of his rookie season in the G-League developing his offense.

While I expect the Wizards to take a jump season, outside of drafting Dybantsa, I didn’t love their offseason. But adding a franchise-altering player is nothing to sneeze at, either.