Fearness: The 2026-2027 Washington Wizards season may not go the way you think, but lets hope it does

Rebuild phases

So Dawkins has said – the 4 phases of the rebuild of the Washington Wizards are:

• Deconstruction (finished)
• Laying the foundation (finished June 24, 2026)
• Building it up
• Fortifying what they've built

The Wizards are guaranteed a top 5 draft pick and then and that should seemingly finish the "laying the foundation" portion with the first round of the draft June 24, 2026.

The bad news: 30 wins in the 2026-2027 season is probably the reality

Even during our tank years, at the start of each season the "It's our year!" commentary would start and people would hope beyond hope that some how the Wizards would come out of nowhere to be a force in the NBA.

The Wizards are not going to be a dark horse. They are not going to be sneaky competitive. They are not going to magically win a championship, cast a spell and hex their way to the ECF, or with a flip of a cloak, be a 5 or 6 seed in the playoffs. The Washington Wizards are not "going to surprise people" this upcoming season with Trae and A.D. on the team.

What's going to happen in this coming season? I thought the East was "wide open"? Why can't this team win 40 games?

For at least 6 or 7 years now, teams don't seem to scout the Wizards much, and you can see that top tier teams go into practice or scrimmage mode on us. They are not really concerned about who we're putting on the floor, they just stick to basketball principles.

• Drive and kick.
• Pump fake and beat your man and get to the rim
• Pick and pop
• Just keep passing the ball around until the Wizards make a mistake

They don't care if we start Bilal, Bub, JC, Sarr and Vuk or Bub, Kyshawn, Tre, Juju and Gill. It's just a Wizards player in a jersey to them. That's why you'd see people going up on Deni and getting their shots blocked to hell, because they had no idea if he would do anything. That's why you'd see people sprinting out to Bilal open at the 3-point line in his first season or two. Or why a guy like Booker would be in the paint flat footed, see Alex Sarr right next to him, and go up anyway (and Sarr would block the shot). But that's not going to be the case next season.

⭐Fearness⭐

Anthony Davis talked about it here:

"People are talking about our team, already….and people around the league are like 'who knows what can happen?' …when you add a guy like myself and a guy like Trae to these young guys that can play. Which means that people are talking about it, its some people that Fear. So now you're talking about a level of Fearness. …is Fearness a word?"

At the start of next season, that's changing. If Trae and A.D. are out there with a top 5 pick from June 2026, there's already going to be a minimal level of attention on the team. If we have those 3 guys as starters, ESPN/NBATV/TNT/Prime Video are probably all going to have 2 or 3 national TV games for us in the first 3 months of the season. Don't be shocked if we even get a nationally televised game vs a premiere opponent for opening night or night 2.

Teams will game plan fully exploiting Trae's inability to guard bigger guys. They'll pay attention to film on Bub, and his weaknesses will go from periodic to glaring. Bilal's desire to drive right will become apparent when teams start forcing him left to create actions they find desirable. JC will get boxed out routinely. Kyshawn's man will attack him any time he gets frustrated and get him into foul trouble early. Every issue you saw as a Wizards fan with our teenagers and 20 and 21 year olds, every flaw that made you go "yikes", teams will try to exploit, KYP (Know Your Personnel) style.

• Keefe knows this.
• Dawkins knows this.
• Winger knows this.

The "jump season" is huge for our young guys this year, and Trae and AD scrimmaging with them over the summer and in training camp is crucial. It's a critical part of development because they have to work on their weaknesses and learn to function as a unit. Last season Keefe and Dawkins instituted an ethos where you had to earn your playing time. "Earned, not given" was instituted to drive competition and drive guys to be better. This summer when training camp starts, expect this to be different.

Wizards training for this upcoming season

When prep for the 2026-2027 season starts, I'd imagine they try to identify a starting 5 that makes sense, and then run those guys together as a unit. This season we had like 46 different starting lineups, which led the NBA for a time. Next season I'm guessing they will seek to completely reverse that, and come up with a starting 5 they put out for the first month of the season consistently to see how they do and give them time to learn each other.

What will change is the people coming off the bench. So say the starters are Trae, Bilal, Kyshawn, Sarr and AD. They may start with the first 2 off the bench being the draft pick, Bub and Tre. If that doesn't work the first week, the second week they may switch up to the draft pick, Will and JC coming off the bench. Watkins and guys like Vuk, Hardy, JuJu and Gill are going to be relegated to watching and filling in for injured guys. Now if we get the #1 pick, that could send one of those starters to the bench. The only guaranteed starters to me are Trae, Sarr and A.D.

These guys need time to learn each other. They've never played a minute together. They're starting from the bottom. There will be injuries, miscommunications, friction, sicknesses, misunderstandings, and don't forget the rest of the players in this loaded draft are going to other teams too. So if we get AJ, we still have to play teams with Boozer and Peterson and Wilson and Fleming and so on. Additionally, some of the young players on teams like the Pistons, Hornets, 6ers, Cavs, and even Hawks, will now have playoff experience.

The Pacers will have Haliburton back (hopefully…he's got health issues related to Shingles). Harden and Donovan Mitchell will have playoff experience together. And we'll be visible to them now. They won't be playing in scrimmage mode like how Jamal Murray was just jogging around getting cardio the last time they played us. Meanwhile, our guys will be spending this year learning to play together.

These guys already know how to play basketball. Yes, but there are levels to this.

Ever seen an NBA player against non NBA players? They destroy them. There are levels to this. This season Keefe flat out said out loud, this season is about process, not results. Meaning this whole season the leadership of the Wizards (coach-wise) did not care about stats. They care about guys making the right reads. Guys making the right calls.

What are the Levels?

• Just completing the task. Making the rotation. Completing the action.
• Another level is doing it consistently. Consistent free throws. Consistent shot forms. Consistent reads. It's what Westbrook talked about when he said 'don't get bored with doing the same thing over and over.' Bub said in his exit interview he'd just learned this season from Trae that passes can't just be the right reads, they have to be the right pass.
• Another level is learning what your teammates like and don't like. So a pass to an open Trae and a pass to an open AD are likely 2 different passes.
• Other levels are mastering your own sets, developing counters for teams counters to your sets, and learning your opponents, and like 10 other levels.

Other teams are far far beyond that point. Playoff caliber teams have mastered those things.

This season is about a common experience

Hall of Famer Steve Nash talked about it on the most recent "Mind the Game" podcast. In discussing teams' playoff chances, he noted that you have to have playoff scars and "common experience". Basketball can be played in so many different ways and these guys have played it in a ton of styles and now they have to learn how to play a style together, then figure out if they can do it consistently and make it a winning style that is successful even when other teams know what they're running.

Remember a few years ago when the Wizards started the season like 17-7 or something under WUJ, and were on top of the Eastern Conference for a few days? That's what you saw – a combination of a new team nobody knew what to expect from, and the Wizards executing what they'd practiced. Once the league took enough notice, obviously things went downhill and WUJ was ultimately fired. It may happen again to start this year, something like 12-5, because no one has seen these guys play together (including our top-5 pick), and nobody knows what the Wizards are going to try to run. It'll be so hard not to see that and think the playoffs are a lock.

But wait, aren't we getting easy wins from tanking teams?

Nope! Tanking is over. If you missed it, Adam Silver and the NBA Board of Governors are having special meetings in the coming weeks, purposefully before the NBA Draft Lottery, to announce whatever anti-tanking rules they're establishing. With two different NBA franchises getting actual substantive fines that they had to pay, and talk and press conferences making it clear they are looking at proposals that flatten lottery odds, it's clear that tanking is over as we knew it. Betting is likely at the heart of the change, because you can't have people betting on games where one team is essentially throwing the game. It's far too messy. So there won't be any tanking teams to get easy dubs off of.

The Good News!!

Who cares?! Sports are full of stories and seasons of guys who did better than anybody would have imagined, because they just ignored that they weren't supposed to be that good. That is what fandom is about. Believing in your guys to win, when on paper it says you shouldn't expect them to win.

So here's to the 2026-2027 Washington Wizards 40-win team that maybe sneaks into the playin! We can ignore what's supposed to happen and do what fans do: root for our team to win games!

The tank is OVER. I'll be rooting for Bub's middy, enjoying Bilal's dunks, watching Trae & Tre hit logo 3s, seeing Kyshawn bully other teams, and AG still going to pick up guys from the scoring table when they come out of the game. I'm looking forward to Sarr starting to dunk everything, Will Riley to get stronger and even wilier, and I'm excited to see Cam Whitmore shooting the gap for steals. JC and JUJU boards, Vuk 3s, and Watkins posters.

Next up, TOP 5 PICK IN THE DRAFT!