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Wizards Look to Escape Rebuild Before Disastrous Anti-Tanking Changes
Mar 8, 2026; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; Washington Wizards guard Trae Young (3) celebrates with guard Tre Johnson (12) during the first half against the New Orleans Pelicans at Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images

Wizards Look to Escape Rebuild Before Disastrous Anti-Tanking Changes

Originally posted on Washington Wizards on SI
By Henry Brown  |  Last updated Mar 27, 2026 11:40 AM ET

The Washington Wizards are, at long last, looking ahead to fielding a more competitive product next season, and everyone involved couldn't be happier.

The prospects, for one, aren't individually losers. The eight players that this front office has hand-drafted have each won at nearly every phase of their respective basketball journeys, and with the Wizards looking unlikely to eclipse the 20-win threshold for a third consecutive season, they, along with the recently-acquired star veterans unaccustomed to such losing spells, will enjoy heightened nightly stakes.

But beyond this upcoming draft class theoretically placing the cherry atop the Wizards' expansive prospect pool, contributors within the organization and fans looking on from the outside can each sense that they'd be better off moving on to the next phase of their build sooner rather than later for fear of outside influences. League commissioner Adam Silver has his heart set on cracking down on eliminating tanking strategies, having proposed a few counters to the present NBA Draft format for the NBA's Board of Governors to vote on.

The NBA's Critical Misunderstanding

Silver's most recent convoluted pitches scream recipe for disaster, completely exposing his misunderstanding of how bad teams stay bad.

For one, franchises' commitment to a tank job will depend based on the year- it just so happens that now, when he's particularly hot and bothered over teams like the Wizards choosing to stack losses, there are real prizes awaiting strategic organizations looking to take one of the numerous prizes at the top of this summer's cycle.

And if the history of the draft tells us anything, it's that the worst teams need transformative players more than anyone. The last few years have seen then-middlers like the Atlanta Hawks and Dallas Mavericks control the top of drafts, giving others who aren't quite so lucky little chance to escape the basement.

Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Whatever the NBA's decision-makers decide on, assuming they make any changes at all, won't be enforced until well after the Wizards accomplish their mission of locating an entirely-new roster through the aggregate.

They've managed to piece together a base of Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George, Bilal Coulibaly, Tre Johnson, Will Riley and Bub Carrington with the first-round picks they earned without every rising in the lottery, but given that a bona fide lead option still lacks among the given talent, another summer swing provides one more shot at rounding out the squad's future.

If the Wizards thought getting fortunate was hard before, having to squabble for draft positioning alongside other actual playoff teams sounds like an even bigger headache. While Silver makes his problem worse by refusing to go about-face on the lottery odds that he himself had already flattened, Washingtonians are gleeful to turn their head towards the future and away from his song and dance.

This article first appeared on Washington Wizards on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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