AJ Dybantsa is wasting no time embracing the nation’s capital. Just days after the Washington Wizards made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, the rookie forward turned up courtside for the Washington Mystics’ WNBA matchup against the Minnesota Lynx.
The 19-year-old is already showing love to his new city, and the Mystics also happen to hold a special place in his short Washington story.
Dybantsa caught a Mystics game during his pre-draft visit and watched them beat the New York Liberty, then joked afterward that he might have been good luck. Now he is back in the building as the centerpiece of the Wizards’ rebuild.
Washington landed Dybantsa to anchor a new era. The Wizards re-signed Trae Young to a four-year, $212 million deal and paired him with a core that already features Anthony Davis, along with young pieces like Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly, Tre Johnson, and Kyshawn George. Dybantsa walks in as the franchise pillar.
The fit makes sense given what he showed at BYU. The 6-foot-9 forward led Division I with 25.5 points per game in his lone college season, adding 6.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists while shooting 51 percent from the field. He also dropped a 43-point game that broke Danny Ainge’s BYU freshman scoring record, and he became the first player to lead the country in scoring and go first overall since Glenn Robinson in 1994.
Dybantsa is the first No. 1 pick in Wizards history since John Wall in 2010, which shows how much Washington is banking on the teenager. The franchise has not won 50 games in a season since 1978-79 and has reached the playoffs just once in the last eight years, so the pressure to turn things around is real.
For now, Dybantsa gets to enjoy the moment and cheer on another DC team. The real work starts soon, with Summer League in Las Vegas waiting in July, where he will line up against fellow top picks like Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer.
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