The Washington Wizards are stockpiling wings — but what’s the plan?

It’s a question about the 2025-26 Washington Wizards that comes up again and again: Why does the team have so many wings?

The answer is interesting — and it cuts to the heart of the Wizards’ roster-construction strategy but also to roster construction in the modern NBA.

So I’m devoting the latest edition of The Athletic’s Wizards mailbag to this topic. I’ve edited the submitted questions for clarity and to account for roster moves that occurred after the questions were submitted.

What’s with all the wings? 

The Wizards appear to have five guards (Malaki Branham, Bub Carrington, CJ McCollum, AJ Johnson and Tre Johnson), three bigs (Marvin Bagley III, Alex Sarr and Tristan Vukcevic) and then about nine or so 6-6 to 6-8 guys who play the three (Justin Champagnie, Bilal Coulibaly, Kyshawn George, Khris Middleton, Corey Kispert, Dillon Jones, Will Riley, Jamir Watkins and Cam Whitmore).

That seems like a bit of a glut that needs to be addressed by Will Dawkins, no? –Brooke T.

I would like to “second” this question. While we all respect Will Dawkins and Michael Winger, Wizards fans are already starting to fall into a mode where fellow fans can’t question their moves, circa the 2020 Nats with Mike Rizzo (but without the championship).

I think there are real, hard questions that can be asked about roster construction thus far. The team elected to pass on Khaman Maluach this year (and traded up in the draft last year, but not for a Zach Edey type) and hand the center position to a wiry Alex Sarr who may not be able to rebound his position.

While we understand that they can’t/shouldn’t try to win this year, you also can’t develop all these wings at the same time. They already had to ship out Colby Jones for pure roster-spot availability reasons, but how in the heck can these guys all develop at the same time if they all play the same position? They certainly can’t all develop on the defensive end, where some of them will be playing out of position just to get minutes. And we all know that five minutes into the season, we will all be complaining about a lack of defense and rebounding. –Malcolm H.

I agree that, against the backdrop of traditional NBA roster construction, the Wizards are super-heavy on wings, light on traditional bigs and thin on traditional point guards.

I also agree that the 2025-26 Wizards almost certainly will be below-average in terms of defensive rebounding — probably even bottom five. I mean, the team finished last season 27th in defensive-rebounding percentage, and that was with two strong defensive rebounders, Jonas Valančiūnas and Kyle Kuzma, on the roster until the trade deadline. Now, without major offseason additions to shore up the already weak defensive rebounding, it’s difficult to envision significant gains in that area.

But at this stage, positional roster imbalance is not the Wizards’ primary concern, or perhaps even their secondary concern. They are attempting to bring as many high-upside players as possible onto their roster — through the draft, through trades, through signings — and do their best to develop those players into upper-level NBA players. Think of it as casting a wide net in an effort to see who, eventually, will stand out.

Who will fill the Wizards’ No. 1 bucket, that of a franchise cornerstone, someone along the lines of who Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is for Oklahoma City or who Jayson Tatum has been for Boston? Who will fill the No. 2 bucket of someone who isn’t quite a franchise cornerstone but contends for All-NBA honors, someone akin to Jalen Williams for Oklahoma City or Jaylen Brown for Boston? And who will fit the No. 3 bucket, like Chet Holmgren for OKC and one of any number of very strong tertiary players for Boston last year?

That, in my opinion, is Washington’s greatest challenge and ought to be Washington’s top priority: finding players who fill those broad roles.

This explains why Wizards general manager Will Dawkins always says before every draft that he’s looking for the “best-available player” instead of trying to fill specific positional needs. He’s looking for the prospects who have the best chances to fill one of those top-three buckets.

So, why did Dawkins decide to draft wing Tre Johnson sixth overall instead of big man Khaman Maluach or anyone else who was still available? Dawkins thought Johnson was the best-available player, the player who has the best chance of becoming an upper-level NBA player.

Once the team starts to fill those buckets, it can fill in the rest of the roster around those top-level guys.

In June, the Wizards selected University of Texas wing Tre Johnson sixth in the NBA Draft. (Brad Penner / Imagn Images)

The roster is not built to win now. Heck, it’s more accurate to say that, with a roster skewed so heavily toward youth and inexperience, this roster is built to lose in the short term. I say that without negative overtones. I think the front office did the responsible thing by not making roster moves this offseason to try to eke out a few more victories in 2025-26. As an impartial observer, I think the Wizards need to attempt to win the 2026 lottery to try to draft the franchise-changing player they so desperately need, to try to fill that No. 1 or No. 2 bucket that, for the moment, seems to remain unfilled. If I were in Dawkins’ shoes, I’d be willing to sacrifice defensive rebounding this season if it were to help the Wizards land the 2026 draft’s top prospect. Washington can use next offseason’s ample cap space to shore up its defensive rebounding in free agency or trade for defensive rebounding from its full cupboard of wings and future draft picks.

The questions you’ve posed here are more about development, specifically whether the seeming overabundance of wings will inhibit those wings’ long-term improvement. The point about the difficulty of the wings developing on defense is well-taken if we assume that some of the Wizards’ wings will defend opponents who are either much faster and more agile or much larger and stronger.

My conclusion is that all of us — me included — need to acknowledge that the NBA game has changed, and continues to change. Our traditional notions of positional roles don’t apply as much as they once did. Because of the prevalence of the 3-point shot and because so many teams play fast on offense, defenders now have to cover more ground than ever before. It’s now common for players we don’t consider “point guards” to initiate offenses, and it’s now rare for centers on offense to play with their backs to the basket.

It’s a league increasingly populated by versatile players in the 6-foot-4 to 6-foot-9 range. The distinctions among what shooting guards, small forwards and power forwards are expected to do are murkier than ever before, particularly within switch-oriented defensive schemes.

Let’s examine the league’s reigning champs, the Thunder. When everyone’s healthy, the Thunder’s starting lineup features a pair of 7-footers, Holmgren, who is ultra versatile, and Isaiah Hartenstein, who is more of a traditional big.

A close look reveals that, with Holmgren missing more than half the season with an injury, the Thunder relied heavily on lineups dominated by players we regard as wings. During the regular season, nine of Oklahoma City’s 10 most-used five-man lineups included only one big or no big at all. Wings such as Jalen Wiliams, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe received tons of minutes. Even the Thunder’s primary initiator, Gilgeous-Alexander, is 6-foot-6, a height typically associated with that of a wing. And Williams, commonly considered a wing, initiates the Thunder’s offense quite a bit.

Look, also, at the Celtics’ teams of recent years. Yes, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White were referred to as the Celtics’ “point guards,” but in reality, Tatum and Brown were the Celtics’ primary creators.

My point isn’t that the Wizards are trying to become the Thunder or the Celtics. My point is that great teams have versatile players, and that there’s no such thing anymore as a player who is solely a small forward. You and I may think of Justin Champagnie, Bilal Coulibaly, Kyshawn George, Khris Middleton, Corey Kispert, Dillon Jones, Will Riley, Jamir Watkins and Cam Whitmore as guys best suited as threes, but in reality, many of them play the two, the three and the four and sometimes the one, with those roles varying by lineup or varying from possession to possession.

This goes back to one of my biggest pet peeves in the roster-construction punditry space. Pundits apply the guiding principles of NFL roster construction to the NBA, when, in fact, many of those principles are specific to football.

“The game of basketball is so fluid, and positionally things are changing,” Dawkins told me a few days after this year’s draft.

“And unlike football, where you’re drafting for one position on one side of the field, you have to play both ends of the floor in basketball. So sometimes you’re playing one position on offense but you’re playing a different type of position on defense, and there’s cross-matches and mismatches. So the way the game is going, with the flexibility, the type of players we’re drafting gives Coach (Brian) Keefe options. So we’re just going to continue to find people who fit our attributes and bring them into our building.”

Coulibaly and George are quintessential examples of this. With Coulibaly listed as 6-8 and George listed as 6-7, we’d traditionally consider them as threes. But last season, the Wizards often deployed Coulibaly and George defensively to guard opponents’ top offensive initiators — a critical defensive role that, years ago, probably wouldn’t have gone to 6-foot-8 or 6-foot-7 players.

The Wizards moved up in the 2023 NBA Draft to acquire the draft rights to wing Bilal Coulibaly (0). (Nick Turchiaro / Imagn Images)

In the year ahead, I expect the Wizards’ lineups to closely resemble the playing groups the Wizards employed during their best 10-game stretch last season, the stretch from Feb. 24 through March 15 in which they went 6-4. Think a three-wing lineup such as Carrington, Coulibaly, George, Middleton and Sarr or AJ Johnson, McCollum, Tre Johnson, Whitmore and either Bagley or Vukcevic. I won’t be shocked to see the Wizards sometimes employ lineups of four wings and one big, depending on the opponent.

On most nights, the Wizards will face opponents that play just one big at a time. Think Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia and Toronto, for instance. So, for the Wizards, employing wing-reliant lineups won’t be the issue that will put Washington at a disadvantage.

The Wizards will be able to make adjustments to protect themselves defensively against opponents that use lineups with two bigs. Cleveland’s Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley would cause problems when they play simultaneously. New York would be tough on nights when Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson play simultaneously. Milwaukee would be a potential nightmare with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Myles Turner. Then again, Cleveland, New York and Milwaukee figure to cause problems for lots of East teams.

I think Wizards officials would portray having so many wings as an advantage for the players’ development, citing how those players will have to compete against each other for playing time. There’s some truth to that. Even with three-wing lineups, there will be only a finite number of minutes to go around.

There’s no question in my mind that, when healthy, and as long as they remain bought-in to the team concept, the highest-upside young players — Coulibaly, George, Tre Johnson and Whitmore — will get their minutes.

But finding playing time for deserving players is something that Keefe will have to juggle. How many minutes will McCollum, Middleton, Kispert and Champagnie log each game? Perhaps Middleton will held out for one game of many back-to-backs, a decision that would keep Middleton healthy and would give opportunities for others, including Riley. I don’t anticipate Jones or Watkins to play a whole lot, especially early in the season. And remember, with Washington now at 16 players on standard NBA contracts, the team will have to reduce its roster size by one player before the regular season starts.

(Top photo of Kyshawn George: Reggie Hildred / Imagn Images)