Wizards select AJ Dybantsa No. 1 in 2026 NBA Draft

The Washington Wizards used the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft on AJ Dybantsa, putting the BYU freshman at the center of one of the deepest top ends the league has seen in years. Washington passed on Kansas guard Darryn Peterson and Duke forward Cameron Boozer, who went No. 2 to Utah and No. 3 to Memphis, as the first round unfolded in New York and Brooklyn.

Dybantsa arrived with the kind of production that makes front offices think past the next season. He started all 35 games for BYU as a true freshman, averaged 25.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.1 steals in 34.8 minutes per game, and shot 51.0 percent from the field. He also won the Julius Erving Award, earned consensus first-team All-American honors, was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year and captured the NCAA scoring title.

The pick fit Washington’s own timeline. The Wizards won the lottery in Chicago with 14 percent odds after finishing 17-65, the worst record in the NBA in 2025-26, and Dybantsa became the franchise’s first No. 1 selection since John Wall in 2010. For a team coming off that kind of season, the choice was less about patching a roster than about landing a player with a chance to alter it.

Dybantsa had entered the draft as the highest-ranked recruit in BYU history, and the top of the board reflected how much weight teams still put on pedigree, ceiling and room to grow. The 80th edition of the NBA Draft opened its first round on June 23, with the second round set for June 24, and the early picks placed a premium on players who can anchor a build rather than merely fill a need. Dybantsa said, “Making the NBA has been a dream of mine,” before beginning the next step of that path in Washington.