{"id":949581,"date":"2026-10-28T16:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T16:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/949581\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T16:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T16:30:09","slug":"wizards-first-overall-pick-aj-dybantsa-to-debut-vs-cavaliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/949581\/","title":{"rendered":"Wizards&#8217; first-overall pick AJ Dybantsa to debut vs. Cavaliers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/basketball\/nba\/players\/aj-dybantsa\/836a6587-f951-4676-8fe5-b4b0fdd04b7d\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"836a6587-f951-4676-8fe5-b4b0fdd04b7d\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">AJ Dybantsa<\/a>, the team&#8217;s first-overall pick from the 2026 Draft, will make his debut Wednesday against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WashWizards\/status\/2115477982383055339\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">announced<\/a> after the morning shootaround. <\/p>\n<p>Dybantsa has been sidelined in the early going of the season while recovering from a left ankle sprain. He has missed the team&#8217;s first four games of the year, with the Wizards going 2-2 in his absence. <\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old became Washington&#8217;s first No. 1 pick since John Wall in 2010, when he was selected out of BYU in June.<\/p>\n<p>He made four appearances in the pre-season, averaging 12.8 points 3.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.5 steals and 21.7 minutes on a not-so-efficient 50.8 per cent true shooting.<\/p>\n<p>Dybantsa suffered the injury in Washington&#8217;s exhibition finale on Friday against the New Orleans Pelicans, twisting his left ankle in the second quarter before exiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forward AJ Dybantsa, the team&#8217;s first-overall pick from the 2026 Draft, will make his debut Wednesday against the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-949581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}