Members of the Washington Wizards’ front office have always known they will need some lottery luck along the way for their roster-construction plan to succeed in full.
Luck is a necessity when an NBA team begins a rebuild without a top-flight star to trade and without extra future first-round draft picks in its cupboard, as the Wizards did two years ago. So, circle May 12 on your calendar. That’s the day of the draft lottery, when Washington will learn whether it will win a chance to pick either Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper in this year’s draft (assuming Flagg enters the draft).
But as important as the random bounces of ping-pong balls will be, a rebuilding team also must do everything it can to succeed in the areas it can control. In the Wizards’ case, that includes making smart, well-informed choices in the draft, developing its players well and using any means at their disposal to give themselves more opportunities to land high-level talent.
For now, until May 12, that is the lens through which the Wizards’ 2024-25 season should be evaluated.
Did the front office make smart choices when it drafted Alex Sarr, Bub Carrington and Kyshawn George? Did the team develop its rookies, young players such as Bilal Coulibaly and more established players such as Jordan Poole? Did the executives make roster moves that will give Washington more bites at the apple, and the best possible bites at the apple, in upcoming drafts?
Asked late Sunday morning whether the organization accomplished what it hoped to accomplish, Wizards general manager Will Dawkins told The Athletic: “I would say that we discovered through a lot of different assessments and lineups that there’s a style of play that, if we’re rowing in the right direction, can be successful. And we have the type of players here who were bought into that. We’re far from where we need to be — still at the ground level. But we feel good about the camaraderie of the group, the work ethic of the group, and the direction we’re headed. But (there’s) a lot of work ahead of us.”
A few hours later, Dawkins’ team ended its regular season on a high note, with Carrington banking in an off-balance shot from 2 feet as time expired to give the Wizards a 119-118 road victory over the Miami Heat, who sat their top players. Carrington’s teammates converged on him for a celebratory dogpile and, as Carrington told reporters in Miami afterward, doused him with cold water in the visitors’ locker room.
With that win and a Utah Jazz loss later in the afternoon, the Wizards finished their season 18-64, in sole possession of the league’s second-worst record, which also means they will have a 20 percent chance of a worst-case lottery scenario in which they would receive the sixth pick in the upcoming draft. In that sense, the win over Miami was a negative, but the Wizards did their best to stack the deck against themselves; they played only seven players, which forced AJ Johnson to play all 48 minutes, Colby Jones to play 42 minutes and Carrington to play 41 minutes.
The welcome news is that the Wizards, as a bottom-three team in the standings, already had secured the best possible lottery odds for a top-four pick: 14 percent to win the first pick, 13.4 percent to obtain the second pick, 12.7 percent to secure the third pick and 12 percent to receive the fourth pick.
In the victory, many of Washington’s youngest players showed why the front office is bullish about the future. Even in limited minutes, Sarr displayed agility, smooth shooting stroke and passing skill that, along with his potential as a rim protector, give him the potential to be at least a solid stretch big. George offered glimpses of his all-around game. Johnson demonstrated his explosiveness, passing and his energy. Center Tristan Vukcevic, with career highs of 28 points, 11 rebounds and five assists, showed off his offensive ability. Forward Justin Champagnie notched another double-double. Carrington became just the fifth rookie in franchise history to play all 82 games of his first season, joining Earl Monroe, Wes Unseld Sr., Mitch Kupchak and Jeff Ruland.
Sarr, Carrington and George amassed significant playing time — with Carrington leading the league’s 2024-25 rookie class with 2,458 total minutes — and each appeared to improve as the season progressed, perhaps none more than Sarr.
“I think Alex attacked the season with a growth mindset,” Dawkins said of Sarr, who was the second pick. “He took the necessary steps to get comfortable on both ends of the floor, stacked his days and put his work in and finished the season pretty strongly. The game came easier to him defensively, as we expected, but even on that side of the ball, you saw the growth the second and third time around when he was playing opponents (again), and then offensively the versatility and the passing, the playmaking, finishing and shooting. All that got better as the season went on.
“You can watch some of the games at the end of the season,” Dawkins added, “and see him being able to play inside, protect the rim, but also switch and guard some elite-level players. As he continues to learn the game and continues to get stronger, I think you’ll … see him do that more.”
Dawkins views Carrington, the 14th pick acquired in a draft-night deal, as a late bloomer who has made strides from his senior year in high school in Baltimore to his one-and-done season at Pitt to his rookie year in the NBA.
Carrington posted two of his best shooting months of the season in February and April. In February, he made 50 percent of his field goal attempts and 40 percent of his 3s. In April, he sank 44 percent of his field goal attempts and 39 percent of his 3s.
“Bub is someone who brought a lot to our team in terms of energy but also production,” Dawkins said. “He, too, is someone that we’re really excited about and for his future. In terms of where he’s at as a player, he’s made the biggest strides from year to year as he grows and gets bigger and plays with the ball more.
“So he’s someone who defensively is a lot more comfortable and offensively has improved just in terms of shot creation, playing the right way, getting others involved as the season went along. So he’s been a consistent player on the offensive end and towards the end of the season became a consistent player on defense, and that’s really important for him to build on into the offseason.”
Bub Carrington was all smiles after his game-winning basket in the Wizards’ season finale. (Rhona Wise / Imagn Images)
George, who was drafted 24th and went to the Wizards in a draft-night trade, has far exceeded outside draft analysts’ expectations, emerging as a far better-than-advertised perimeter defender, a promising outside shooter and someone who has an outstanding feel for the game.
“I think Kyshawn is another player who started the season without fear and really attacked the work,” Dawkins said. “He definitely didn’t shoot the ball the way he expected to start the year, but stayed in the gym and stayed confident, and I think you saw (him) take a huge jump. … Physically, he stayed in the weight room and then you saw him adjust defensively to become one of our better defenders. … He has a high IQ on both ends, and while he was learning the game, he was really high in fouls to start the season, and then toward the end really adjusted and became one of our better defenders.”
It is, of course, difficult to project how young players will develop in the years ahead. Indeed, when asked when team officials will know for sure whether its young players can drive winning, Dawkins answered: “You never know until it’s actually happening, but we feel like we have the starting foundation in place, with the right people, more importantly, with the right habits to help change what we’re doing here.”
Perhaps no player did more to shore up his stock than 25-year-old guard Jordan Poole, who, after a difficult first season in Washington, rebounded this season to average 20.5 points per game on 43 percent shooting from the field and a career high 38 percent from 3. Poole also did a strong job helping the team’s youngest players maintain their confidence.
At the trade deadline, Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger and Dawkins made a four-team deal that, at its core, sent Kyle Kuzma to the Milwaukee Bucks for veteran Khris Middleton, Johnson and the right to swap a 2028 first-round pick. In a different move, Washington acquired veteran Marcus Smart, a lottery-protected first-round pick from the Memphis Grizzlies and Jones from the Sacramento Kings. In yet another trade, the team also sent Jonas Valančiūnas to Sacramento for a pair of second-round picks.
The departures of Kuzma and Valančiūnas, as well as the additions of Middleton and Smart, set the stage for the Wizards to dramatically improve their ball movement and overall spirit. In a 10-game stretch from Feb. 24 through March 15, Washington compiled a 6-4 record, including road wins in Detroit and Denver, and showed glimpses of coach Brian Keefe’s vision for the team.
Wizards officials view that stretch as proof of concept of what they’re trying to build.
So, why did that stretch end? With rival franchises tanking more aggressively, the Wizards started to sit their players strategically.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was an example of the Wizards successfully controlling what they could control. If the Wizards proved nothing else during their 2024-25 season, they demonstrated their ability to do that in almost all facets of their operation.
Whether it will provide the payoff team officials are hoping for is too early to tell, but there are promising signs.
(Top photo of Marcus Smart, Jordan Poole, Bilal Coulibaly and Saddiq Bey: Rhona Wise / Imagn Images)