Wizards take AJ Dybantsa No. 1 overall in NBA Draft

Washington turned a 14.0% lottery shot into the No. 1 pick and made AJ Dybantsa the face of its latest rebuild at the 2026 NBA Draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The 19-year-old BYU forward from Brockton, Massachusetts, gives the Wizards a rare franchise centerpiece after they finished with the NBA’s worst record at 17-65 and won the lottery on May 10.

Dybantsa arrived in Washington with the kind of college season that made him hard to pass up. In 35 starts for BYU, he led the nation in scoring at 25.5 points per game and added 6.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.1 steals while shooting 51.0% from the field and 33.1% from 3-point range. He left Provo with consensus first-team All-America honors, the Julius Erving Award, and Big 12 Freshman of the Year and Newcomer of the Year recognition, all after entering college as the No. 1 recruit in his high school class.

The selection also lands at a pivotal point for the Wizards’ roster timeline. Washington has missed the playoffs five straight seasons, has not finished above .500 since 2017-18 and has not advanced past the second round since 1979. The front office had already moved to change that picture before the draft, adding Trae Young and Anthony Davis to a core that includes recent lottery picks Alex Sarr and Tre Johnson. Dybantsa now joins that group as the prospect expected to bridge the gap between a veteran reset and a longer-term build.

For Washington, the pick is its third No. 1 overall selection since the franchise moved to the capital, following Kwame Brown in 2001 and John Wall in 2010. This one carries a different kind of pressure because the Wizards did not acquire the top slot through a major trade or a singular superstar exit, but through a lottery win against long odds. The franchise’s next two seasons will be measured less by slogans than by whether Dybantsa can develop quickly enough to make the Young-Davis experiment matter and whether Sarr and Tre Johnson can grow alongside him.

The pick also changes the history of another program. Dybantsa became the first No. 1 overall NBA draft selection in BYU history, surpassing former No. 2 picks Shawn Bradley in 1993 and Mel Hutchins in 1951. In a draft class that also featured Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Duke forward Cameron Boozer and North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson, Washington chose the player many evaluators viewed as one of the safest bets to become the franchise’s next building block.