WASHINGTON — Most of the Washington Wizards’ key statistics over the first quarter of their season paint a clear picture of how they have performed.

The Wizards, at 3-17, are tied for the NBA’s lowest win total. Opponents have outscored them by 14.5 points per game, the largest negative point differential in the league this season.

Washington ranks 28th in the NBA in offensive efficiency, last in defensive efficiency and last in net rating.

This confirms what the eye test already told us: So far, the 2025-26 Wizards have been inept relative to the rest of the league. Their record is their record. Their statistical rankings are their rankings. And they have endured plenty of lopsided losses.

But there is a difference between ineptitude and incompetence, and, as distasteful as it may sound, the front office has followed its overarching roster-construction plan with ruthless efficiency.

Team executives hoped for some of the young players to make clear strides, and that has happened with second-year big man Alex Sarr and second-year point forward Kyshawn George.

Sarr, a former second overall pick, has improved his rim protection, increased his defensive rebounding and diversified his offensive game to now include more physicality and more forays to the basket. George, picked 24th last year, has improved his playmaking and his 3-point shooting. These are positive signs.

“I think we’ve made a lot of progress as a team and as individuals comparing the first game (this season) to where we are now,” Sarr told The Athletic. “Obviously, (there were) a lot of games that we could have won that we didn’t. So it’s a little frustrating when you look at our record knowing that we could have won some more games definitely because we were up at the end of the games. But that’s something you can’t control. It’s in the past. All we can do is learn from it and take it as lessons.”

An overriding necessity — unspoken publicly but critical nonetheless — always has loomed over the 2025-26 season. This is the final season in which the Wizards could potentially give up a first-round pick as a consequence of the 2020 trade in which they dealt John Wall and a protected pick to the Houston Rockets for Russell Westbrook. (That pick has subsequently been rerouted to the New York Knicks.)

If the Wizards exit the 2026 draft lottery in May with a top-eight pick, the Wizards will keep that pick for themselves and instead send their 2026 second-round pick and their 2027 second-round pick to the Knicks.

It is critical for Washington to retain that 2026 first-round pick, because, despite the growth of Sarr and George, and despite the promise of other young players such as rookie swingman Tre Johnson, the franchise still appears to lack a franchise-cornerstone level talent. The top of the upcoming draft is said to be as strong as any draft in recent memory, featuring Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, BYU wing A.J. Dybantsa, Duke forward Cameron Boozer and Tennessee wing/forward Nate Ament.

The Wizards control their draft destiny to a degree. If they finish with one of the league’s four worst regular-season records, they will be guaranteed a top-eight pick and, therefore, keep the pick. Even if they finish with the fifth worst record, they would face only a 0.6 percent chance of falling to ninth in the draft order and losing the pick.

So far, so good on that front. Losing the pick does not seem likely, for now. Washington ranks next to last in the overall league standings by winning percentage, sandwiched between the league-worst New Orleans Pelicans (3-19) and the Indiana Pacers (4-18).

“We expect a lot from each other,” George told The Athletic. “I think we’re good people off the court, and I think that goes a long way, sometimes very overlooked. We have high-character people, meaning that we’re not going to give up, we’re not gonna put our heads down. We’re going to just keep going night-in, night-out through the ups, through the downs.”

Opponents of tanking will note — correctly — that the draft-lottery reforms that went into effect in 2019 have flattened the odds of winning the lottery. These days, the teams with the three worst records all enter the lottery with identical 14.0 percent chances of winning the top pick.

But tanking often is less about raising a team’s chances of winning the lottery and more about raising the floor of where a team will pick. A team that finishes a season with the worst record, without ties, can fall to no worse than fifth in the draft order. The second worst team can fall to no worse than sixth.

After a difficult rookie season, Alex Sarr (left) is greatly improved this season. (Geoff Burke / Imagn Images)

The Wizards know this scenario all too well. They finished last season in sole possession of the league’s second worst record, 18-64, and fell to sixth. The Philadelphia 76ers, who won the third pick, would not engage with the Wizards on a potential trade and drafted Baylor guard V.J. Edgecombe. The Charlotte Hornets, who held the fourth pick, were unwilling to trade because they wanted Duke wing Kon Knueppel.

At No. 5, the Utah Jazz selected Rutgers wing Ace Bailey.

The Wizards have never disclosed whether they would have preferred Bailey over Johnson, but there has been more than enough smoke to indicate that Wizards officials thought very highly of Bailey. Finishing with the second worst record prevented them from having the opportunity to make a choice between Bailey and Johnson.

So the Wizards would have some incentive of finishing this season with the league’s worst record if their eventual draft board shows a clear gap between the fifth-best prospect and the sixth-best prospect.

Team officials have always indicated that having the league’s worst record is not their goal for this season. Indeed, in his preseason question-and-answer session with reporters, Wizards general manager Will Dawkins said team officials wanted the team to improve defensively from the squad that finished last season 28th in defense, allowing 118.0 points per 100 possessions.

“We’re going to start on the defensive end and making sure that we get after it and make other teams feel us and have a little bit more of a presence,” Dawkins said on Sept. 24.

That hasn’t happened, for the most part. Despite having a large number of returning players, and despite trading away subpar defender Jordan Poole during the offseason, the Wizards are 30th in defensive rating this season, allowing 122.4 points per 100 possessions. They have a young team, and young players make mistakes, especially when they play alongside each other; it’s clear the group still has a lot to learn, including how to play with consistent energy throughout games.

It hasn’t helped that injuries have limited third-year wing/forward Bilal Coulibaly to 12 of Washington’s 20 games. Coulibaly is the team’s top perimeter defender and is still regaining his rhythm after he injured his right thumb during EuroBasket, underwent ligament-repair surgery in mid-September and then missed four games in November because of a calf contusion. Coulibaly showed what he can accomplish Monday, when he served as the primary defender on Giannis Antetokounmpo and helped the Wizards upset the Bucks 129-126. On Tuesday night, Coulibaly strained his right oblique, and the injury will force him to miss multiple weeks.

The defense would be even worse if not for Sarr, who has limited opponents to 51.1 percent shooting on 11.3 attempts per game within 6 feet of the basket, according to the league’s player-tracking data. For comparison’s sake, San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama, who is a superb defender, has allowed 54.5 percent shooting on 6.4 attempts per game within 6 feet of the rim this season. Cleveland’s Evan Mobley, the 2024-25 NBA Defensive Player of the Year, this season has allowed 55.9 percent shooting on 8.0 attempts per game within 6 feet of the basket.

Sarr’s rim protection has greatly improved. Last season, opponents shot 61.9 percent on 8.7 attempts per game against him within 6 feet of the basket. Sarr has been more active defending shots at close range and more effective, but it is worrisome that the Wizards’ perimeter defense has been so bad that he’s had to contest so many shots at the rim.

And that subpar team defense should be considered Washington’s biggest worry through its first quarter of the season. The team’s young players are working hard to improve their individual games, but are they learning how to win?

The Wizards are giving up more points per possession than they did last season, and they’re forcing turnovers at a lower rate this season (12.5 percent, ranking 28th overall) than last season (13.1 percent, ranking 25th overall).

Coach Brian Keefe acknowledged Monday that his team’s defense is “not where we want it to be.”

“This is a season-long goal to get more consistent,” Keefe said. “We’ve shown patches of being really good, to be honest, at certain points. Then there’s other times where we aren’t where we need to be. We’ve got to shorten that period. That’s the big goal.”

That hints at the competing objectives the organization is attempting to balance: the goal of learning how to win while preserving, and maximizing, its chances in the critically important 2026 draft.

The franchise is executing its plan well, but as the first 20 games showed, it’s a difficult needle to thread.