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Oct 30, 2025; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; Washington Wizards center Alex Sarr (20) moves the ball as Oklahoma City Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein (55) defends during the second half at Paycom Center. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images

Wizards' Rising Star Finally Backing Up Draft Upside

Originally posted on Washington Wizards on SI
By Henry Brown | Last updated Nov 4, 2025 9:00 AM ET

The Washington Wizards' early attempt at their rebuild prompted some truly plump, low-hanging fruit for the majority of the NBA viewing public.

Those inside of the DC-area had reason to believe in the Wizards' freshly-minted general manager in Will Dawkins and his Oklahoma City Thunder ties, who laid out his intentions for a meticulous, multi-year overhaul of the franchise's building blocks in his quest to build something sustainable and, one day, worthy of competing for championships.

He's held true to that goal in the two and a half years since taking the Wizards' post, but casual viewers had plenty of jokes to make about their newest attempt at finding positive relevance. After all, we're talking about a franchise that hasn't won 50 or more games in nearly five decades, and they've gone even longer since they won a title or even made the conference finals series. Those who haven't been paying attention to their occasional short-sighted attempts at winning may have assumed that the team's been "rebuilding" all throughout the 21st century, and they've made few popular decisions since then to dispel such rumors.

Their strategy to lose significantly more games than they win resulted in a juicy pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, where they got to pick French phenom Alex Sarr. He could have gone first overall, but he turned his nose up at the Atlanta Hawks in favor of the squad who had a clear direction and timeline.

Fans of the Hawks were displeased at the maneuver, instead turning to a safer option in Zaccharie Risacher, a role-playing wing who lacked Sarr's defensive upside or 1-of-1 ball-handling/rolling/shooting combination at his seven-foot size.

Sarr didn't win himself any fans over last year's Summer League, looking lost without guards to feed him, and his rookie season featured enough clumsy, off-balance finishing attempts and clunky 3-point attempts to validate doubters in spite of his historic defensive brilliance.

John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images

He's now a half-dozen games into his sophomore campaign, and though their potential star of a point forward in Kyshawn George may be the most popular breakout young Wizard, Sarr's crawled out of the reputational hole he dug himself into to surpass some of the other top prospects picked within his neighborhood last summer.

George had the benefit of being a late-first round pick, eventually winning his way into the hearts of the nerds who noticed his defensive, shooting and playmaking flashes later in last year's losing season. Sarr had a lot more work to do in efficiently scoring at the rim and around the arc, and has addressed everyone who had something to say with a turnaround start to this fall.

Backing Up the Draft Upside

His jump from 13 points to 17 between seasons can't just be attributed to his rise from a 30.8% 3-point shooter into a 42+% sniper. He's using his body more on post entry passes and pick-and-rolls, giving the fans what they begged for in the form of enhanced results around the basket. His 48.2% true shooting was highly-worrying, even for a rookie center, but his current mark of 60.1% speaks to his ability to quickly adapt to a shot selection that works.

Alex Sarr Early Season Paint Scoring/Defense

18.4 PPG - 8.6 REB - 4.0 AST - 2.0 BLK

This Is An ELITE Center ‼️ pic.twitter.com/vTsW0GiSLx
— WizardsMuse (@WizardsMuse1) November 1, 2025

He also had to field comparisons to Risacher and Reed Sheppard, the two prospects picked before and after him. While Risacher capped off a solid, if not unexciting season of wing defense and off-ball play-finishing, Sheppard got to spend much of his own rookie voyage watching from the bench in a higher-leverage situation on the Houston Rockets while parlaying his draft hype into stock heading into year two.

Sarr now headlines his class alongside George and Rookie of the Year-winner Stephon Castle as some of the headlining sophomores entering November. Except unlike the surprise riser George or the already-impressive Castle, Sarr's bucked arguably the toughest expectations in his class in jetting out ahead of some of his closest contemporaries, silencing some of the biggest questions surrounding his game and the doubters of the Wizards' rebuild he now sits at the center of.

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

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