The Washington Wizards have a complicated history, with their last 50-win season dating back to 1978/79. Over the past few years, their most successful seasons were when John Wall led the team to the Eastern Conference Semifinals. However, during the 2022/23 season, the team won exactly 35 games, which was expected based on their over/under entering the season.
Though there were some positive developments, like career years from Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis, and Corey Kispert becoming a solid rotation player in his second year, disappointments in other areas balanced things out. Bradley Beal was plagued by injuries for the second straight season, and their lottery pick Johnny Davis spent most of his rookie season in the G League, struggling when he did get NBA minutes.
The Wizards are currently struggling to define their identity on both offense and defense. Where they go from here is an open question, as they don’t have the types of young players typical teams would build around, nor do they have a cache of future draft picks. Getting lucky in the draft lottery would be a good start, as they have the eighth-best odds at landing the No. 1 overall pick and a 28.9% chance at a top-four selection.
With this offseason being critical for the Wizards, it remains to be seen what the team will do. Kyle Kuzma has already said he plans to turn down his $13 million player option to secure a larger payday. Meanwhile, there are reports of “serious” talks regarding an extension for Porzingis, but that was before the front office change.
The biggest question facing the Wizards remains whether Beal is a star worth building around. While there is multiple seasons worth of evidence saying the answer is no, the issue is that he’s coming off two injury-riddled seasons and still has four years and over $200 million left on his contract.
The Wizards currently have a salary cap situation that leaves them with a little over $30 million in cap room if both Kuzma and Porzingis decline their options, but it’s not clear who they could target with that money who would be better than their current players. The team is also faced with the challenge of finding someone to take over the front office and rebuild a rickety foundation that hasn’t had success drafting in the 9-15 range over the past few decades.
