Washington Wizards

Chicago, Baltimore, Landover, downtown

The team that plays at Capital One Arena has carried five names and been based in four places. It entered the NBA in 1961 as the Chicago Packers, the league's first expansion franchise, spent 1962-63 as the Chicago Zephyrs, then moved east to become the Baltimore Bullets from 1963 to 1973. A relocation to the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland produced a single season as the Capital Bullets in 1973-74, after which the club was the Washington Bullets until 1997. The Wizards name arrived that year, alongside a move into the new downtown arena then called the MCI Center and since renamed twice.

The constant through the moves has been the Pollin-to-Leonsis ownership line that ends at Ted Leonsis and Monumental Sports & Entertainment, who also own the Capitals and the Mystics and run the arena the three teams share.

One banner, and the long run of near-nothing after it

Washington has reached the NBA Finals four times — 1971, 1975, 1978 and 1979 — and won once, beating the Seattle SuperSonics in seven games in 1978. Wes Unseld was the Finals MVP of that series and remains the only player to have won both the regular-season MVP award and the Finals MVP award. Elvin Hayes, Earl Monroe and Gus Johnson came out of the same era into the Hall of Fame, and five numbers hang retired: 10, 11, 25, 41 and 45.

Everything since has been thinner. Eight division titles sit in the record book, but only one of them arrived after 1979, in 2017. The franchise has made 28 playoff appearances in total; the 2025-26 season was its fifth consecutive year without one, and the roster that finished it contained nobody who had played a playoff game for the club.

17-65, and the worst defence in the league

The 2025-26 campaign finished 17-65, a.207 winning percentage, last in the NBA and the second-worst record in franchise history. Washington was 15th in the Eastern Conference and fifth in the Southeast. The numbers underneath were uglier than the record: a defensive rating of 122.7 points allowed per 100 possessions and a net rating of minus 11.8, both 30th in the league, against an offensive rating of 111.0, which ranked 28th. The team played fast — 101.4 possessions a game, sixth-quickest — and lost anyway. CJ McCollum led the scoring at 18.8 points a game, ahead of Alex Sarr on 16.3 and Kyshawn George on 14.8.

Two trades reset the direction mid-season. On 9 January 2026 the Wizards acquired Trae Young from Atlanta for McCollum and Corey Kispert. On 5 February a three-team deal with Dallas brought Anthony Davis, D'Angelo Russell and Jaden Hardy in exchange for Marvin Bagley III, Khris Middleton and draft picks. Injury blunted both: Young played 15 games across the whole season, five of them in Washington, and Davis managed 20.

The nadir had a date and a name. On 10 March 2026, in a loss to Miami, Heat centre Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against the Wizards — the second-highest individual total in league history, past Kobe Bryant's 81. The compensation was the best lottery odds in the draft that followed.

The summer the plan got expensive

Young turned down a $49 million player option for 2026-27 and committed instead: a four-year agreement worth roughly $212 million, reported on 22 June 2026 and confirmed on 6 July, with a player option in the final year. He arrived as a five-time All-Star, the fifth pick of the 2018 draft, with career averages of 25.1 points and 9.8 assists.

With the first overall pick Washington took AJ Dybantsa, born in Boston in January 2007 and raised in Brockton, Massachusetts, who went from Saint Sebastian's to Prolific Prep to Utah Prep before a single season at BYU. In 35 games he averaged 25.5 points on 51.0 per cent shooting, led the country in scoring, was a consensus first-team All-American, won the Julius Erving Award and was Big 12 Freshman of the Year; on 24 January 2026 he scored 43 against Utah for a BYU freshman record. He signed a four-year rookie deal worth $66.91 million on 2 July 2026 and opened Summer League with 27 points.

The veterans came in waves. Deandre Ayton arrived from the Lakers on 7 July for Jaden Hardy and future picks. A day later Middleton returned through a sign-and-trade with Dallas inside a six-team deal — five months after Washington had traded him there — while Russell was routed to Memphis. Tre Mann came from Charlotte in a five-team trade on 20 August, and Anthony Gill re-signed on 15 September for a seventh season in the 15th and final roster spot. Jamir Watkins re-signed to a two-way deal on 1 July; Reece Beekman, Steve Settle III, Trevor Keels and Chris Livingston took Exhibit 10 contracts into a 21-man camp, competing for the remaining two-way place.

Where it stands in October 2026

Media day fell on 28 September 2026, with camp opening the next day at CareFirst Arena. The club posed Young, Davis and Dybantsa together and captioned the picture "This is going to be fun." Young, who has barely played in a year, said he was looking forward to going out and playing again and that he missed it. Brian Keefe, still head coach after the 17-win season, framed the roster as a selection problem rather than a shortage: "In today's NBA, depth wins," with the preseason used to work out which combinations fit.

Davis set the bar on the side of the floor that collapsed last year, saying a group this big and this versatile should be a top-ten defensive team. He also declined to settle his own future, confirming he holds a $62 million player option for 2027-28 and will sit down with the front office once the season ends. Bub Carrington suggested 18 wins as a floor; Keefe declined to set a ceiling. Dybantsa, asked about carrying a first pick's weight, said the team around him takes the pressure off, and Keefe indicated the rookie will be one of several players allowed to initiate offence. Middleton, Keefe added, is going to be a substantial part of what the team does.

Not everyone in Washington reads the summer as progress. The strongest fan-side objection is financial and developmental at once: Young's deal escalates through roughly $47 million, $51 million and $54 million to a $58 million option, which collides with extensions due for Sarr and George, while a ball-dominant guard risks reducing Tre Johnson and Carrington to off-ball scorers rather than the lead creators they were drafted to become.

Game night in a half-finished building

The season runs 82 games, 41 of them at Capital One Arena. Preseason starts on 8 October at Madison Square Garden against the Knicks; the home and regular-season opener is Wednesday 21 October against Milwaukee. The product itself is the league's standard shape — four 12-minute quarters, a little over two hours door to door — so what distinguishes a Wizards night this winter is the building and the roster turnover inside it.

Capital One Arena is in the middle of a reconstruction costing more than $800 million, funded by $515 million committed by the District across three years and at least $285 million from Monumental, with Gensler on design and Aramark on the food. The three new suite tiers — Founder on the 100 level, Signature and Executive on the 300 — open for 2026-27, served by four new VIP entrances with private escalators. The wider works add 65 per cent more concession space, 30 per cent more restrooms, broader concourses and a second entrance billed as the Grand Pavilion, with athlete areas more than doubled and a Wizards training facility on site. Jim Van Stone, Monumental's president of business operations, described it as recreating the entire facility from the ground up. Reporting on the full scheme points to completion around the 2027-28 seasons, so audiences this year will move through a site still partly under construction.

Crowds have been the honest measure of the last few years. Home attendance in 2025-26 totalled 660,376, 29th of 30 teams, in a bowl that seats 20,356 for basketball. Whether the new suites and the Young-Davis-Dybantsa frontage change that is the first thing the 21 October tip-off will show.