Dybantsa will be surrounded by young talent and a couple of old question marks
by Thom Loverro · The Washington TimesOPINION:
The Washington Wizards’ No. 1 draft choice, A.J. Dybantsa, the top pick in the NBA draft Tuesday night, should have a far easier time as a rookie with this franchise than their previous two No. 1 draft picks this century.
Kwame Brown was the top choice in 2001, a high school kid who wasn’t ready for the abuse he would take from the league’s legendary star and Wizards president of basketball operations, Michael Jordan. He was damaged goods before he ever played a regular-season game.
John Wall was their No. 1 in 2010, the clear-cut star choice out of Kentucky.
But he joined a roster that included former franchise hero-turned-villain Gilbert Arenas, the toxic star that new majority owner Ted Leonsis hoped would help create a formidable front court.
When it became clear Arenas had other plans, he was traded.
The guns in the locker room incident with Arenas and Javaris Crittenton still hung over the team, as did the passing of owner Abe Pollin.
But Wall weathered the early failures to lead the Wizards to four playoff appearances and made the All-Star team five times.
The 6-foot-9 Dybantsa, a 19-year-old coming off a freshman year at BYU in which he averaged 25.5 points per game, is coming into a warm and welcome cocoon, surrounded not by bullies and bizarre teammates but by other young players with promise.
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And the Wizards were kind enough to get the losing out of the way before Dybantsa got here — 196 losses over the last three seasons.
Dybantsa said when he met with team officials, “They challenged me when they talked to me, saying, ’If we pick you, we want you to play defense 94 feet and pick up.’ So I definitely bring that too.”
Warm and welcome may not necessarily transfer to wins — at least not right away.
Playing defense for 94 feet would be about 93 feet longer than his teammates did. This team finished 28th in the league two years ago in defense and dropped to 29th in the just-completed season.
I’m not sure where this defensive pressure is going to come from. I doubt returning coach Brian Keefe — named the “least impressive” coach in the NBA in anonymous player surveys conducted by The Athletic — is a defensive guru who has just been waiting for Dybantsa to arrive to impart his wisdom.
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But what about the veterans Washington traded for last season? They’ll bring their years of experience to the court to play defense for 94 feet, right?
The dark cloud that hung over the Wizards on draft day was the news they had signed guard Trae Young to a ridiculous four-year, $212 million contract. The deal was ridiculed throughout much of the NBA media, save for the local cheerleading corps.
That 94-feet of defense isn’t coming from Young, considered to be among the worst defenders in the league.
A four-time All-Star who was traded from Atlanta to Washington on Jan. 7, he can score and dish, but he is a remarkably flawed player, with a career turnover average of 4.2 gifts per game — the worst in NBA history. He is also a below-average shooter, with a 41% average in his last full season and a career mark of 43% from the field.
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This is the player who you make your biggest investment in on the team?
Then again, if you are going to sell tickets in “The Halo” — owner Ted Leonsis’ high-priced Capital One Arena section — you better sell more than a future.
Washington would have been better off keeping C.J. McCollum, who was playing so well in Washington he was fouling up their tanking plans.
So they sent him to Atlanta in the Young deal, and all McCollum did was help turn around the Hawks, who were 18-21 with Young there. McCollum led them to a 46-36 record and the playoffs.
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He just agreed to a one-year, $21 million extension with Atlanta. Yes, he is 34 years old, but he would have been a better option for an influential transition player
Then there is future Hall of Famer Anthony Davis, who came to Washington in a multi-player trade with the Dallas Mavericks on Feb. 5.
The notion that Davis would be part of any Wizards run to success is delusional. First, he’s likely to wind up elsewhere before the start of the season. But wherever he plays, he has been a medical calamity.
According to the website fadeawayworld.net, Davis has dealt with foot issues 55 times, ankle injuries 24 times, Achilles problems 20 times, and back issues 20 times, plus strains, knee soreness, calf injuries, shoulder problems, plantar fasciitis, groin pulls, wrist sprains, finger injuries, concussions, rib pain and maybe some injuries that they haven’t come up with a name for yet.
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The last time he played anything close to a full season was 2023-24, when he appeared in 76 games. Before that, you have to go back to 2017-18, when Davis played 75 games.
Young has a better chance of being named to the NBA All-Defensive Team this season than Davis playing any meaningful Wizards games.
Dybantsa is their best chance to play meaningful Wizards games. He looks like he has the potential to be a franchise-changing player, surrounded by a core group of young players like Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly, Tre Johnson and others. And unlike those who came before him, he will have an easier path to success.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.
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