Of course, the Wizards selected Dybantsa first overall in the 2026 NBA Draft, pairing him with two All-Stars in point guard Trae Young and forward Anthony Davis. The trio would’ve gone head-to-head with the Heat trio of James, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo four times a year, with two games coming at home and two on the road as division opponents.<\/p>\n
But instead of heading to Miami to join the Heat, James opted to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>, joining a roster headlined by Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecombe. The roster is much more stacked than it would’ve been had he gone to the Heat, a team that faces questions at the guard positions after dealing away lead guard Tyler Herro in the Antetokounmpo trade.<\/p>\n The Wizards will not play James and the 76ers three times during the regular season. The home-and-away number of matchups has yet to be determined.<\/p>\n During the 2025-26 regular season with the Los Angeles Lakers, James missed 22 games at the beginning of the season with a nagging back injury. At 41 years old, the 76ers will likely give James off nights on back-to-backs and other certain circumstances in order to preserve him until April, once the playoffs come around.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n We’ll have to wait and see how often the 2026 No. 1 pick in Dybantsa battles against the 2003 No. 1 pick in James, but it’s sure to be a battle that is must-see TV.<\/p>\n Contact\/Follow\u00a0@BYUCougarsWire<\/a>\u00a0on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0to follow ongoing coverage of\u00a0BYU Cougars<\/a>\u00a0news, notes and opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 25, 2026, 6:54 p.m. MT The Washington Wizards, who drafted former BYU star AJ Dybantsa first overall,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[72400,7,6,94096,94097,73480,72404,72411,72546,72442,72445,72475,72406,72558,73171,72477,72479,72428,72403,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":["post-796069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-wizards","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sourcebyu-cougars-wire","tag-sstssportscollegecougarsmens-basketball","tag-sstsnmens-basketball","tag-tagbasketball","tag-taggiannis-antetokounmpo","tag-taglebron-james","tag-tagmiami-heat","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagphiladelphia-76ers","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagstory-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-tagtyler-herro","tag-tagtyrese-maxey","tag-tagvj-edgecombe","tag-tagwashington-wizards","tag-typestory","tag-washington","tag-washington-wizards","tag-washingtonwizards","tag-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796069","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=796069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785046512_879_90891246007-2285436215.jpg\")