CHICAGO — The Washington Wizards won the NBA draft lottery on Sunday, earning them the first overall pick in June’s NBA Draft.
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The Wizards entered with a 14 percent chance at the No. 1 selection. The lottery was held at Navy Pier in Chicago, with executives from all 14 lottery teams and 16 reporters present for the drawing.
Washington and the Utah Jazz landed picks No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.
This year’s draft class has been widely praised as one of the deepest in recent memory, headlined by three players with legitimate cases to go first overall: BYU forward A.J. Dybantsa, Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, and Duke forward Cameron Boozer.
Dybantsa, who was the consensus top recruit in the high school class of 2025, averaged 25.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game in his lone season with the Cougars, shooting 51% from the field. He is coveted in part because of his prototypical size on the wing.
Peterson averaged 20.2 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.6 assists in 24 games for the Jayhawks. He is considered by many to be the best scoring prospect in this year’s draft class. Peterson’s freshman season at Kansas was in part derailed due to a cramping issue, which caused Peterson to miss 11 games and leave several others early. He told ESPN earlier this month that doctors concluded the cramping was a result of high doses of creatine consumption.
Boozer, the son of former NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer, averaged 22.5 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 4.1 assists for the Blue Devils. He earned both the Naismith and AP Player of the Year awards and helped lead Duke to within one game of the Final Four.
This year’s draft lottery came on the heels of a contentious NBA season, with league commissioner Adam Silver repeatedly criticizing teams for tanking over the final months of the year.
“Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we’ve seen in recent memory? Yes, is my view,” Silver said in February.
He added: “If teams are manipulating their performance in order to get higher draft picks even in a lottery, then the question becomes … are they really the worst-performing teams?”
The league is hoping to curb tanking in future seasons by implementing a new lottery system. ESPN reported in April a proposal that would expand the lottery to 16 teams from 14, flatten odds and penalize teams with the three worst records. Owners are scheduled to vote on the proposal on May 28.
The 2026 NBA Draft will begin on June 23 with the first round. The second round will take place on June 24.
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