LOS ANGELES — For people who follow the Washington Wizards, it’s long past time to temporarily redefine the traditional notions of what it means to succeed and fail in the NBA.
Success ought to revolve around winning games and advancing in the playoffs. But the reality is that much of what the 2024-25 Wizards are aiming for is almost diametrically opposed from what teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and New York Knicks are striving for. It’s the starkest of contrasts — the difference between a team in the early stages of its rebuild and teams in title contention.
The Wizards brought two overarching goals into this season: One never mentioned explicitly but real nonetheless, the other repeated ad nauseum. The unspoken objective is Washington must protect its chances to fare well in the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery. Washington’s oft-repeated ambition is to develop all of its players, with a special focus on the youngsters who may remain with the team long term.
At the midway point of their season — 41 games down, 41 more to go — the Wizards haven’t merely protected their lottery odds. They’ve maximized them. At 6-35, they own the league’s worst record by a wide margin, with four fewer victories than the club with the second-worst winning percentage, the Toronto Raptors. If the current standings hold without ties, the Wizards, Raptors and Utah Jazz would enter the lottery with the same odds of winning the first, second, third and fourth picks; crucially, by having the league’s worst record, the Wizards would be the only team certain to receive no worse than the No. 5 pick.
This is the truth about the NBA: You simply must have at least one great player to win big. No team right now is better positioned to find itself at the top of the 2025 draft than Washington.
One of the reasons the Wizards have struggled so badly is that the team has devoted so many minutes to an inordinate number of super-young players: 19-year-old rookies Bub Carrington and Alex Sarr, 20-year-old swingman Bilal Coulibaly and 21-year-old rookie Kyshawn George. Carrington leads all NBA rookies in minutes per game. Sarr ranks third, and George ranks seventh. Coulibaly leads the entire team in playing time, averaging 33.4 minutes per game, and he almost always guards opponents’ best perimeter scorers or playmakers.
Team officials believe their youngsters playing extensive minutes is the best way for them to grow quickly.
“I think it’s great that they’re going through it,” coach Brian Keefe said. “That’s how you learn. You get out there, and you go through it. You experience it. All these things are new learning experiences.”
Carrington, Coulibaly, George and Sarr have absorbed thrashings in the majority of the games they’ve played. Through 41 games, the Wizards have been outscored by 13.4 points per 100 possessions, according to the NBA’s statistics database. If it holds, that net rating of minus-13.4 would be the second-worst in the league since the 1996-97 season. The 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats, who finished a lockout-shortened season with a 7-59 record, had a net rating of minus-15.0.
The Wizards are 6-35 in Brian Keefe’s first full season as their coach, but Keefe has been pleased with his young players’ work ethic and professionalism. (Ed Szczepanski / Imagn Images)
The trio of Carrington, Coulibaly and Sarr has been Washington’s second-heaviest used three-man lineup this season, piling up 548 total minutes across 34 games. That trio has predictably struggled, with a net rating of minus-18.4 per 100 possessions.
On Saturday, the first game of a West Coast road trip, the Wizards played one of their better games of the season, making a franchise-record 22 3-pointers but still losing 122-114 to the Golden State Warriors. Carrington said his main takeaway from the defeat was “the level of focus, the intensity” needed to overcome the more experienced, Stephen Curry-led Warriors.
“Those guys rarely had mental lapses,” Carrington said. “They rarely made mistakes. They rarely did the young stuff that me or Kyshawn or Alex would do.”
The lessons occur in every game. The only Washington players who seem to be playing to their potential on a regular basis are guard Jordan Poole and veteran big Jonas Valančiūnas. It hasn’t helped that guard Malcolm Brogdon and forward Kyle Kuzma have dealt with injuries for large portions of the season.
Sarr, for instance, spent many of his minutes during Sunday night’s 123-100 road loss to the Sacramento Kings matched up for the first time against rugged, skilled center Domantas Sabonis, who was named third-team All-NBA in each of the last two seasons. Sabonis outweighs Sarr by nearly 35 pounds and has played in 578 more regular-season games than Sarr. And Sabonis dominated the matchup in the minutes he faced Sarr.
Sarr said his focus for the second half of his rookie season is “trying to grow in impacting winning more, just doing the little things that change the results at the end of the game.”
There’s no denying that Sarr has made significant strides. In December, he made just under 46 percent of his 3-pointers on relatively high volume, at 4.9 attempts per game. He is a 7-footer with some of the shooting touch and passing skills of a 6-foot guard, giving him the potential to be a stretch big who can make plays for teammates. His rim protection remains a work in progress, as to be expected from someone whose body is nowhere close to filling out. But he already blocks shots at a rate better than roughly 80 percent of the league’s big men, according to advanced analytics database Cleaning the Glass. Some of the areas where he needs to improve are with his boxouts and with learning when to — and not to — attempt to block shots.
Carrington has impressed with his feel for the game and competitiveness. George is, as Keefe often has said, a superb “connector,” the kind of player whose smarts make the game easier for teammates.
Coulibaly arguably possesses the highest ceiling of anyone on the Washington roster. At 6-foot-9, he has the athleticism, agility and size to stifle scorers and playmakers ranging from Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young to Celtics forward Jayson Tatum.
Coulibaly’s progression from defensive specialist as a rookie to someone expected to be a difference-maker on both sides has been rocky. After a promising opening 10 games this season, Coulibaly’s performances have been, by his own estimation, mixed.
“I had some good moments, had some lower moments,” he said. “So, I’d say up-and-down. I’ve got to be more consistent.”
Like many second-year players, Bilal Coulibaly (left) has been inconsistent in an enhanced role. (Robert Edwards / Imagn Images)
The Wizards have expanded Coulibaly’s offensive role, giving him more opportunities to make plays off the dribble. His assist rate has ballooned, and he now ranks higher than 71 percent of the league’s wings, according to Cleaning the Glass. His turnover rate remains high, with only 14 percent of NBA wings giving up the ball at a higher percentage, but he’s actually been more sure-handed than he was as a rookie.
His shooting has been a mixed bag. His 3-point efforts have dropped from about 35 percent as a rookie to under 28 percent this season. At the same time, he has converted an improved 71 percent of his attempts at the rim.
Keefe often says Coulibaly and the rookies have embraced the challenge of logging heavy minutes and have developed admirable work habits. These are critical first steps to long pro careers.
But what remains difficult to discern is how high the players’ potentials are and how likely they are to reach those ceilings. It’s difficult in large part because they play so many minutes alongside each other; perhaps if any one of them played exclusively alongside four solid veterans, such evaluations would be simpler.
Meanwhile, the Wizards’ continued losing begs the question of whether they will grow too accustomed — and too accepting — of defeat. Any such concerns may be too overwrought; the Houston Rockets’ young nucleus of Alperen Şengün, Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr. has emerged from sustained losing early in their careers, thanks in part to the additions of hard-nosed veterans Dillon Brooks, Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams.
Then again, Şengün, Green and Smith did not lose at the same rate that Carrington, Coulibaly, George and Sarr are currently losing.
“We’re trying to just learn the game together,” George said.
(Top photo of Jordan Poole: Ed Szczepanski / Imagn Images)
