The Wizards have seen enough from their No. 1 pick and other second-year players to shut them down for the rest of summer league.
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LAS VEGAS — The Washington Wizards have shut down rookie wing AJ Dybantsa and second-year wings Will Riley and Tre Johnson for the remainder of the team’s NBA Summer League games, Wizards summer league coach T.J. Sorrentine told The Athletic on Tuesday.
The decision should not come as a surprise.
The Wizards opened their summer league camp July 2 in Washington, and they had five practice days before they left for Las Vegas.
Dybantsa, Riley and Johnson performed well during summer league play. Dybantsa, the top pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, averaged 25.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists in his two appearances. Riley averaged 25.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists in his two games. And Johnson scored 26 points in Washington’s summer league opener, his lone appearance.
There’s nothing left for any of them to prove.
“It’s a culmination of camp all the way through the games,” Sorrentine said. “It’s not just what (everyone’s) seen on TV. We’ve had a good camp, a lot of good practices and shootarounds and a couple of good games.”
His scoring ability and knack for drawing fouls continued during his two summer league appearances, and he made 12 of his 14 free-throw attempts. Those free-throw figures don’t tell the full story, because the NBA is testing an experimental free-throw rule during summer league play in which players shoot just one free throw for any foul that would normally result in multiple free-throw attempts. (The experimental rule is suspended during the final two minutes of the fourth quarter and in overtime.)
If there are quibbles about Dybantsa’s summer league performance, they would be that he shot only 39.4 percent from the field and made only one of his 11 3-point attempts. Many of his jumpers were short, a sign of fatigue from the summer league practices and games. Honing his jump shot will be a focus for him before the Wizards convene for training camp in late September.
Dybantsa demonstrated potential on defense, recording three blocks in his two summer league appearances. After Washington’s second exhibition game, Sorrentine said Dybantsa has the potential to develop into an all-defensive team player.
Second-year wing Jamir Watkins, who tweaked his left knee during the Wizards’ summer league opener Thursday, will miss his second straight game Tuesday night, when Washington faces Chicago at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center.
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Josh Robbins is a senior writer for The Athletic. He began covering the Washington Wizards in 2021 after spending more than a decade on the Orlando Magic beat for The Athletic and the Orlando Sentinel, where he worked for 18 years. His work has been honored by the Football Writers Association of America, the Green Eyeshade Awards and the Florida Society of News Editors. He served as president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association from 2014 to 2023. Josh is a native of the greater Washington, D.C., area. You can follow Josh Robbins on X @JoshuaBRobbins.
