We are in late July, aka the Dog Days of Summer, or the abyss of the NBA season. Kevin has a great piece about why the Washington Mystics had a great WNBA All-Star Weekend, highlighted by their win in the Shooting Stars Competition. But let’s focus back to the Washington Wizards for this story.
Over the past weekend, LeBron James decided to take his talents to the Philadelphia 76ers, which just happens to be the NBA market geographically closest to Washington. James, who is 41, is still more than capable of being a key starter for a top level team. And that’s going to shake up the power rankings.
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John Schuhmann of NBA.com posted his latest power rankings for the Eastern Conference yesterday. After Washington acquired Trae Young and Anthony Davis last winter, wouldn’t that make a Young/Davis/AJ Dybantsa trio a postseason team, which means Top 10 in the East? Nope. He had them at No. 12. Here is Schumann’s blurb.
Key question: Can the young guys keep developing?
The Wizards were the worst team in the league last season, but there were some individual signs of progress with their young core …
Kyshawn George saw the third biggest jump in points + rebounds + assists per 36 minutes among 290 players that played at least 500 minutes in each of the last two seasons.
Alex Sarr, George and Bub Carrington saw the second, eighth and 11th biggest jumps, respectively, in effective field goal percentage among 123 players with at least 500 field goal attempts in each of the last two seasons.
Trae Young should help those players get better shots. The Wizards ranked 26th in shot quality last season, but their shot-quality score was much higher (top-five level) off of Young’s passes in the five games he played. However, the offense was still bad (106.6 points scored per 100 possessions) in his 104 minutes on the floor. The young guards will also have to adjust to getting far fewer touches, and it remains to be seen if Sarr and Davis can fit together offensively.
Dybantsa is the future, but there’s a decent team here if the returners can find their way in what may be a very different offense from what we’ve seen over the last few seasons.
I think Schuhmann is hedging his bets here. If Dybantsa fires on most or all of his cylinders, Young plays all season and Davis remains in Washington for the whole 2025-26 season (not to mention remaining healthy), then the Wizards should be a postseason team. But the Wizards also haven’t shown they can make a jump from worst team in the NBA to just a below average team. Also, it wouldn’t shock me to see Anthony Davis get traded by the deadline in Feb. 2027 for … more draft picks. So I can see why he is skeptical.
In addition to Schumann, Ricky O’Donnell, SB Nation’s NBA Editor is also skeptical of the Wizards’ improvement relative to other NBA teams for the upcoming 2026-27 NBA season. In his latest rankings, post LeBron to Philly, the Wizards are at No.27 (and by extension, 13th in the East). That’s better than No. 30. But the Wizards are still effectively at the bottom of the barrel, even with a potential future All-Star in Dybantsa.
Do you think that the Wizards are ranked too low in the power rankings? Let us know in the comments below. And in case you missed it, our SB Nation Reacts poll is also below, but right above the comments section!
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