Washington is 2-1 and sixth in the East after three games that count in the standings. The Wizards beat the Bucks 128-116 at home on October 21. They lost 102-112 to the Raptors on October 23, then won 124-120 at the Bulls on October 24. The standings started at 1-0 after the Bucks game. That means the October 8 to October 16 results (wins at the Knicks and over the Pistons, losses to the Nets and at the Pelicans) are not part of this record. An earlier read of this team as 2-2 was wrong.
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Trae Young has driven the new stretch. He scored 13 against Milwaukee, 22 with 12 assists against Toronto, and 25 in Chicago. Anthony Davis had 14 against the Bucks. Tre Johnson scored 20 against the Raptors. Kyshawn George scored 22 at the Bulls. Washington gave up 112 to Toronto, then held on against Chicago by four.
The East standings have moved around. The Wizards were fifth at 1-0 on October 22 and sixth on October 23. A day later they slipped to ninth at 1-1, then climbed back to sixth at 2-1. Their power ranking went from 30th to 9th in one week, then to 12th after the loss to Toronto.
The biggest open question is AJ Dybantsa's left ankle and leg. He was listed day-to-day on October 16. A report the next day said he rolled his ankle in the preseason finale. Since October 19 his status has flipped back and forth: day-to-day on October 19, out on October 20, day-to-day on October 21, out on October 22, day-to-day on October 23. As of October 24 he is out. Several reports have followed him. Nothing says when he will play.
Tristan Vukcevic is still unresolved. He has been out with a hip injury since October 1, when a report put his absence at a minimum of four weeks. That window is closing. No update or return date has come since. Felix Okpara is the only other new name. He was listed day-to-day with an illness on October 22 and cleared the next day. The rest tags for Davis, Tre Mann and Khris Middleton were cleared in mid-October. None has come back since.
The roster edge settled somewhat, but not cleanly. On October 18, Nolan Hickman, Trevor Keels, Chris Livingston and Alondes Williams all left the team. Hickman had joined only a day earlier. Williams had been signed around October 11-12. Reece Beekman, converted to a two-way contract on October 17, is on the roster. Skal Labissiere was waived on October 12.
Open storylines
as of Sun, Oct 25His left ankle and leg have flipped between day-to-day and out five times since October 19, and he is out as of October 24.
Out since October 1 with a minimum four-week estimate, and no update has been reported.
Washington is 2-1 and sixth, after sitting fifth, sixth, ninth and sixth in the standings this week.
Trae Young went from 13 points against Milwaukee to 22 with 12 assists and then 25, while the team split its next two games.
Four players left on October 18, including Hickman a day after he joined, and the back end of the roster is still open.
The projection
all 30 teams →The season depends most on Jamir Watkins (18.8 wins without him), Justin Champagnie (17.4 wins without him) and Tre Johnson (15.8 wins without him): on/off from 2026-27, details under Injuries. Computed Tue, Oct 27; the method is on the methods page.
The race
Eastern Conference · 78 games leftNext 5: at Cavaliers67%vs Hornets75%at Magic33%vs Hawks50%at Hawks50%opponents win 55% of their games on average
Standings and games back are from the official table; the pace is the current record carried over 82 games, nothing more.
Day by day
34 days on the recordEarlier on the record30 more days · back to Thu, Sep 10
The franchise
Every season since the start →Public record →Nowupdated 2026-10-19
Brian Keefe enters his third full season as head coach of a roster built almost entirely through the draft and two in-season trades. Washington landed Trae Young from Atlanta on January 7, 2026, giving up CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, then added Anthony Davis from Dallas on February 5 for Khris Middleton and two first-round picks. Both arrived hurt and barely played, and the Wizards finished 17-65, the second-worst record in team history, ranking 29th on offense and 30th on defense. That finish won them the No. 1 pick, which became AJ Dybansta. The core now runs through Davis, Young, Alex Sarr, Deandre Ayton, Bilal Coulibaly, Kyshawn George, Bub Carrington and Tre Johnson, with Dybansta added as a rookie. Payroll sits at $191.5 million across 14 contracts, over the $165.0 million cap but under the $200.4 million tax line, led by Davis at $58.5 million and Young at $49.5 million. Washington owns its 2027, 2029 and 2030 first-round picks outright, with swaps attached to 2028, 2029 and 2030, and owes a 2027 second-rounder to New York.
Identity and rivalries80 words
This is a team mid-rebuild, still finding out who it is with Young and Davis as the first proven veterans around a young core. The Wizards share Capital One Arena's market with the Capitals and play in a city where the NBA has long taken a back seat, but the roster's average age of 24.9 points toward a team trying to grow up together rather than chase a rivalry. The stakes right now are about development and health, not standings.
Home, owners and numbers74 words
The Wizards play at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., owned by Ted Leonsis through Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which also owns the Capitals. In 2024, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser signed a deal with Leonsis to keep the Wizards in the District at least until 2050, ending talk of a move to Potomac Yard in Virginia. The arena has hosted the franchise since December 1997, under its earlier names MCI Center and Verizon Center.
What they are chasing101 words
Washington is chasing a return to relevance after back-to-back 60-loss seasons, with this fall's 2-2 start under Keefe the first real test of whether Young and Davis can stay on the floor together. Tristan Vukcevic remains out with a hip injury with no return date since October 1, and AJ Dybansta is day-to-day with an ankle issue tied to a report of him rolling it in the preseason finale. The question fans argue over: how much patience does this front office owe a core that's 14 contracts and $191.5 million deep before the picture needs to look like a real team?
The long view545 words
Founded in 1961 as the Chicago Packers, the NBA's first expansion team, the franchise was renamed the Chicago Zephyrs the next season, moved to Baltimore in 1963 as the Baltimore Bullets, then relocated to the Washington, D.C. area in 1973, first as the Capital Bullets and then, in 1974, the Washington Bullets. The team rebranded as the Wizards in 1997. It plays at Capital One Arena in the Chinatown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., sharing the building with the Washington Capitals of the NHL and the Georgetown University men's basketball team. Ted Leonsis owns the club through Monumental Sports & Entertainment.
The franchise has reached the NBA Finals four times. Milwaukee, led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (known then as Lew Alcindor) and Oscar Robertson, swept the Bullets in 1971. The Al Attles-coached Golden State Warriors swept them again in 1975 after a 60–22 regular season, the best record in franchise history. In 1978 the Bullets beat the Seattle SuperSonics in seven games for the only championship in franchise history, Washington's first professional title in 36 years. They lost a rematch to Seattle in the 1979 Finals despite winning Game 1, 99–97, on two free throws. Overall the franchise has made 28 playoff appearances, won four conference titles (1971, 1975, 1978, 1979) and eight division titles (1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1979, 2017).
The defining era ran from the drafting of Earl Monroe (1967, second overall) through Wes Unseld (1968, second overall). Unseld won both Rookie of the Year and MVP in 1969, the only player in franchise history to do so, and later won Finals MVP in 1978. Walt Bellamy, Terry Dischinger, Monroe, and Unseld are the franchise's four Rookie of the Year winners; Bellamy's rookie season included 31.6 points and 19.0 rebounds per game. Elvin Hayes arrived from the Houston Rockets in 1972. In the 1971 Eastern Conference finals, with New York's Willis Reed injured, Gus Johnson's basket beat the Knicks 93–91 in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden, part of a run of playoff series against New York the Bullets otherwise lost repeatedly.
Later rosters carried their own marks: Manute Bol, drafted in 1985, set the team's single-season record with 397 blocked shots on a team that blocked 716; Moses Malone, acquired for Jeff Ruland, averaged 24.1 points a game alongside Jeff Malone's 22.0; Muggsy Bogues, taken 12th in 1987, remains the shortest player in NBA history at 5 feet 3 inches; Bernard King averaged 24.3 points in 1988–89 and, after knee surgery, 28.4 points in 1990–91, third in the league. Coach K.C. Jones was fired despite a 62 percent winning record with the team.
Home arenas trace the moves: the International Amphitheater and Chicago Coliseum in Chicago, the Baltimore Civic Center, a brief stay at Cole Field House, and the Capital Centre in Landover, which opened December 2, 1973, before Capital One Arena. In 1979 the Bullets became the first NBA team to visit China, beating the Bayi Rockets and Shanghai Sharks. Susan O'Malley, daughter of Peter O'Malley, became team president in 1990, the first woman to hold that role in NBA history. The phrase "It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings," from journalist Dan Cook, became the rallying cry of the 1978 title run and remains tied to the franchise's identity.