The Washington Wizards are narrowing their No. 1 choice in the 2026 NBA Draft to two names: AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson. That is the center of the discussion now, and it puts Andrew Wiggins into the search spotlight because the conversation around elite wing upside has moved from theory to a real draft decision.
Sam Vecenie and Josh Robbins broke down how both prospects would fit Washington, but Dybantsa is the one whose statistical case jumps off the page. The Athletic’s 2026 NBA Draft Guide places both players in Tier 1, and Dybantsa’s season gave the kind of offensive production that makes that label easy to understand: 25.5 points as a teenage college freshman, 51 percent shooting from the field, 33 percent from 3 and 77.4 percent from the line.
He did more than score efficiently. Dybantsa got to the line 8.5 times per game and took more free throws than anyone else in the country. He averaged over five attempts at the rim per game in half-court settings, hit 50.7 percent of his midrange jumpers between 10 and 18 feet and, over his final 10 games, dished out nearly five assists per game. At 6 feet 9, he has the size and shot-making profile that keeps him in the conversation for the top pick.
That is also where the worry starts. Vecenie described Dybantsa as a player with franchise-cornerstone upside, but said his handle can get a bit loose and that he needs to get stronger on the ball. Those are the kinds of flaws that matter when a team is deciding whether to hand a No. 1 pick to a prospect who may eventually carry an offense or to another player with a different path to the same ceiling. The comparison is not about whether Dybantsa is talented. It is about how quickly his tools can hold up when NBA defenses turn up the pressure.
The case became even more interesting late in the year, when Richie Saunders went down with an ACL tear during Dybantsa’s final 10 games. In that stretch, his playmaking grew as the load changed around him, which gave Washington another look at how he responds when the game gets more difficult. The Wizards are weighing two Tier 1 prospects at the top of the draft, and the unanswered part is now the only one that matters: whether they decide Dybantsa’s ceiling is the better bet, or Peterson’s name wins the room at No. 1.
