The 2025-26 NBA season is there! In the coming weeks, we are examining the biggest questions, the best and the worst scenarios, and winning projections for the 30 franchises – still reconstruction teams to the real contenders in the title.
2024-25 Finish
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Save: 18-64 (15th to the east, missed qualifiers)
Moves off -season
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Add: Tre Johnson, Cam Whitmore, CJ McCollum, Malaki Branham
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Subtractions: Jordan Poole, Marcus Smart, Saddiq Bey, Malcolm Brogdon
Alex Sarr did the first team of All-Rookie last season. Can it become an All-Star? (Grant Thomas / Yahoo Sports Illustration)
The big question: to whom do these wizards belong to?
The Wizards have 12 players who have been selected in the first round of the NBA draft since 2021, including nine from the last three drafts. Alex Sarr, the global selection n ° 2 in 2024, and Tre Johnson, the choice of lottery of this year, are the highest profile of them, and none was 21 years old.
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Sarr is one of the five first -round selections of the 2024 draft on the Washington list. This group includes AJ Johnson and Dillon Jones, who have arrived in the last year of Milwaukee Bucks and Oklahoma City Thunder, respectively. Cam Whitmore is also trailer of Houston’s Rockets. All will establish their roles in the NBA. This does not include the choice of recent lottery Bub Carrington and Bilal Coulibaly.
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Sorcerers also put into account the veterans Passed-Primar Khris Middleton and CJ McCollum, one or the other of which is probably still imagined as an elite level interpret which guarantees its own share of opportunities.
In theory, they could all work in tandem in a team that dares to challenge their weak expectations.
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In practice, the third-year wizards head coach Brian Keefe will have their hands full by trying to prevent everyone from continuing their own path in the league and swimming in the same direction. While his prospects continue celebrity, he must make sure they work as a semblance of a real basketball team.
Keefe will be tempted to look at Middleton and McCollum as stabilizing forces within the offense, but at what price for the development of the young contributors from Washington? There is a delicate balance between the pursuit of a few additional victories and do what is best for the long -term health of the franchise.
After all, this season is not about winning in Washington. The Wizards won 18 games last season and should not have fantasies on the game tournament. If everything that happens this season is that the sorcerers determine a hierarchical order among their prospects, then it will have been a step in the right direction. All the best if one or more of these players are transformed into someone they envisage as a growing superstar.
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It’s about putting the right players in the right positions to succeed. They do not want anyone who has exceeded a role for which it is not designated. In this sense, the addition of McCollum – the former president of the Union of 34 -year -old players – serves Washington’s goals better than the player for whom he was exchanged, Jordan Poole, a 26 -year -old leader who always qualifies as a head option.
(Get more news from Wizards: Washington team flow))
Similarly, after a few seasons of injuries, Middleton can be the genre that finds salvation to help young players prosper, knowing that it no longer contributes for titles (or at least until it is distant again). It will then be on Sarr, the Johnsons, Carrington, Coulibaly and everyone to seize their opportunities.
Isn’t that what you want from this team? Luck for someone to take the reins and alert the public: It’s my team, and we’re going to go well. This and a shot on another star at the top of next year’s draft.
Best case
Sarr is a true great man of ground spacing and protecting the rim. Tre Johnson is the top scorer they imagine. Both are potential stars. Coulibaly is a complementary wing 3 and D. Everyone settles in their role. And enough of them admirably fill these roles to think that this list could do damage in a year. And in the meantime, the Wizards enter another choice of lottery to join them.
If everything collapses
No one was worth their project status. Not one of them. Years after their reconstruction, wizards are starless in the making. Middleton and McCollum fail in their attempts to fill the void. Everything becomes the next great hope in the project, and this is not a place where a franchise wants to be, where there is no internal development and no hope for the next guy who needs it. It can become very bad, very quickly in Washington.
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Hours 2025-26
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Seasoning: October 22 in Milwaukee
Even if all clicks, the Wizards have no incitement to win and each incentive to play as many of their young players as often as possible. With this will come development and a lot of losses. Pass under.
More preview of the season
East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards
West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • Portland Pélicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • Utah jazz
