The Washington Wizards won the 2026 NBA Draft lottery on Monday night, putting them in position to take BYU forward AJ Dybantsa with the No. 1 pick on June 23, 2026. The Utah Jazz moved up to No. 2 for the first time in franchise history, while the Memphis Grizzlies climbed three spots to No. 3.
The Chicago Bulls also made one of the biggest jumps, rising from No. 9 to No. 4 under a new front office. The Los Angeles Clippers will pick at No. 5 because of the Ivica Zubac trade in February, the Brooklyn Nets fell to No. 6 and the Sacramento Kings dropped to No. 7. The Indiana Pacers lost their draft pick this season to the Clippers.
The night instantly sharpened the focus on a draft class long viewed as unusually strong. Dybantsa and Kansas guard Darryn Peterson are widely seen as the top two names, with Duke’s Cameron Boozer and North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson also part of the elite tier. A strong guard group is expected from No. 5 to No. 10, which makes the back half of the lottery almost as important as the top.
Dybantsa’s case at No. 1 is backed by a freshman season that turned heads across college basketball. He averaged 25.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists while shooting 51 percent from the field, 33.1 percent on 3-pointers and 77.4 percent from the free-throw line. He also got to the line 8.5 times per game, a rate that separated him from nearly everyone else in the country.
That production put him in rare company. Dybantsa and Michael Beasley are the only two freshmen in college basketball history to average 25 points, shoot 50 percent from the field and take at least eight free-throw attempts per game. For a Washington team that now owns the draft board, the lottery did more than improve its odds. It handed the franchise the kind of pick that can change the direction of a season before the next one even begins.
The full shape of the class still makes the June draft night feel loaded rather than settled. Some declared players were left out of the top-tier discussion because they were not viewed as consensus top-35 prospects, or because they were expected to stay in school. But the top end is clear, and the teams that moved up Monday now have the first shot at it.
That leaves the Wizards with the cleanest path and the biggest decision. If they follow the current projection, the answer comes fast: Dybantsa at No. 1, Peterson likely waiting right behind him, and a draft order that has already changed the way nba results will be read in every front office from now until June.
