CHICAGO — The Washington Wizards won the NBA draft lottery Sunday, earning them the first overall pick in June’s NBA draft.
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The Wizards entered with a 14% 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.
Washington and the Utah Jazz landed picks No. 1 and No. 2.
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. Many considered him the best scoring prospect in this year’s draft class. Peterson’s freshman season at Kansas was in part derailed by a cramping issue, which caused him to miss 11 games and leave several others early. He told ESPN 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 won both the Naismith and the 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 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 hopes to curb tanking in future seasons by implementing a new lottery system. ESPN reported last month that 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 May 28.
The 2026 NBA draft will begin June 23 with the first round. The second round will take place June 24.
