WASHINGTON — For two-plus years, Brian Keefe has coached the Washington Wizards through the early stages of a difficult rebuilding process in which team officials prioritized keeping a protected first-round pick, maximizing their draft lottery odds and developing a large number of young players.
Now, Keefe will have the opportunity to show what he can do when the franchise places a much higher emphasis on winning games.
Team officials have decided to retain Keefe for the 2026-27 season, a campaign in which four-time All-Star Trae Young and 10-time All-Star Anthony Davis are expected to lead a young nucleus that will include Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George and the team’s lottery pick in June’s draft.
Wizards general manager Will Dawkins, speaking Thursday during his end-of-the-season news conference, responded to a question about Keefe’s future by saying the coach will return.
Washington has compiled a 43-160 record during Keefe’s coaching tenure. That includes a 17-65 record during the recently completed regular season, with losses in 26 of their final 27 games. Because the Wizards finished in sole possession of the NBA’s worst record, they know they will receive no worse than the fifth pick in the lottery and, crucially, will not have to convey a top-eight protected first-round pick that they owed to the New York Knicks.
The Wizards’ front office gives Keefe and his coaches credit for helping develop rapidly Sarr, George and other young prospects the team has either drafted or traded for in recent years. Tre Johnson, Will Riley and Jamir Watkins improved during their rookie seasons in 2025-26.
Team officials have said they will continue to place a high priority on developing players in the years ahead, even with a roster that includes veterans like Young and Davis.
Keefe’s willingness to collaborate with the front office, without any obvious agenda of his own, has also endeared him to team officials.
Keefe, Dawkins, and Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger share many basketball philosophies because they each spent significant, formative stretches of their NBA careers with the Oklahoma City Thunder. (Keefe and Dawkins worked for the Seattle SuperSonics before the SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder.)
In mid-January, The Athletic asked Winger to assess Keefe’s job performance.
“I think Brian has done a remarkable job,” Winger said then. “I think Brian has done everything we’ve asked him to do. He’s developed young athletes. He’s built a culture of competitiveness, accountability, togetherness and joy. He marches out there every day, coaches these guys on both ends of the floor. He’s built an amazing coaching staff. I’m very, very pleased with the job that Brian has done.”
Keefe, 50, is typically reluctant to discuss himself, instead preferring to keep attention focused on the team’s next practice or game. But many Wizards players respect him, in part, because of his humanity.
Bub Carrington recalled a story from 2024, after the Wizards drafted him. During the 2024 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, Carrington’s dad got sick, necessitating a hospital stay because of a blood clot in his shoulder. The Carrington family remained in Las Vegas for several days after the summer league ended.
“Lo’ and behold,” Bub Carrington said a few days ago, “B.K. was in that hospital room with me, my mom, my dad that whole time. We had to stay four or five days extra, and B.K. was there every single one of those days.”
Doctors prescribed blood-thinners to Carrington’s father, and that medicine prevented him from flying back home from Las Vegas to Baltimore.
The younger Carrington said the family drove home, and Keefe volunteered to drive with them.
“I think that’s the type of guy B.K. is,” Carrington said.
Keefe became the Wizards’ lead assistant coach before the 2023-24 season and was elevated to the interim head-coaching role after Washington fired Wes Unseld Jr. midway through the season. In May 2024, after an interview process that included external candidates, team officials dropped Keefe’s interim tag and hired him as the head coach.