For the second consecutive year, the Washington Wizards will send a franchise-record-tying three players to the 2026 NBA Rising Stars Game, the NBA announced Monday.<\/p>\n
Alex Sarr and Kyshawn George made the sophomore squad, while first-year guard Tre Johnson earned a spot on the rookie team. It marked George and Johnson\u2019s first Rising Stars selections. Sarr made the rookie team last season.<\/p>\n
The Rising Stars challenge is scheduled for 9 p.m. ET on Feb. 13 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.<\/p>\n
The challenge is made of four teams. Three of them are made of rookies and sophomores. One team is made solely of NBA G League players. Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame players Carmelo Anthony, Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady will be the coaches of the three teams while ESPN NBA analyst and former Wizards player Austin Rivers will coach the G League team.<\/p>\n
Sarr leads the league in blocks per game (2.1) and ranks first among second-year player in points per game (17.4).<\/p>\n
The 7-foot center ranks among the league\u2019s top shot blockers and has seen an uptick in his field goal percentage. After shooting just 39.4% FG and and 30.8% 3PT last season, Sarr has improved his efficiency, making 50.5% of his field goals and 34.4% of his 3-point attempts this season.<\/p>\n
After he was snubbed from last year\u2019s Rising Stars roster, George made sure the selection committee had no choice but to call his number this year. Among second-year players, the 22-year-old forward ranks third in points per game (15.5), fifth in assists per game (5.1) and top-8 in both steals per game and blocks per game.<\/p>\n
Tre Johnson\u2019s selection is a timely one. The sharpshooting rookie is fresh off his best game as a pro \u2014 a 26-point, six-assist performance against the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n
Among his fellow rookies, Johnson ranks sixth in points per game (12.9) and 3-point percentage (39.3%). He\u2019s shooting 44.4% from the field and 88.1% from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n
While the Wizards will send three players, which is tied for an NBA-best, to the Intuit Dome for All-Star Weekend, second-year guard Bub Carrington was notably left off the Rising Stars roster.<\/p>\n
Carrington struggled to begin the season, which is the likely reason for his omission. But he\u2019s come along ever since, bringing his averages to 9.9 points per game on 40.5% 3PT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second consecutive year, the Washington Wizards will send a franchise-record-tying three players to the 2026 NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[7,6,682,468,15577,3892,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-563350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-washington","11":"tag-washington-wizards","12":"tag-washington-wizards-news","13":"tag-washingtonwizards","14":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115965159559936302","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}