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As the buzzer sounded in Capital One Arena on Saturday, Wizards rookie Bub Carrington bowed his head and pumped his fists. Washington overcame a career-high 56 points from three-time MVP Nikola Jokić to beat the 2022 NBA champions.
Carrington’s celebration showed more relief than triumph. The win snapped a 16-game losing streak for the Wizards, which teased at the record 28 straight losses the Pistons established last year.
But the Wizards are still exhibiting historic levels of futility. The following night, Washington lost by 28 points to the Grizzlies, bringing their average point differential to -16.2, the worst in NBA history. Their 3–19 record translates to a .136 win percentage on pace for the seventh-worst record. This follows a season in which the team won just 15 of 82 games.
However, the losses appear to align with the strategy laid out by Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the Wizards’ parent company. In a new in-studio interview with Front Office Sports, Zach Leonsis, president of media and new enterprises—and son of owner Ted Leonsis—emphasized his trust in the direction of the team’s front office.
“I’m very confident in our front office’s plan,” Leonsis told FOS. “They presented a 200-slide presentation at one point about a multiyear process. … I think we’re making the most of it.”
Tanking, which is essentially deliberately losing, is not new in the NBA. The purpose is to manufacture a better shot at winning the NBA draft lottery to select a young building block to escape from the cellar. The 2025 draft is expected to be chock-full of franchise-altering talent at the top.
Teams don’t admit to tanking—though there are signs, like playing very young players to expedite their development. At one point earlier this season, four of the five Wizards starters were under 21. (One of their three wins came with that starting lineup.)
So while a tanking team isn’t compiling wins, the organization can believe it’s still taking positive steps.
“While our win-loss numbers aren’t particularly great this season, I actually think we’re having a very, very productive season elsewhere,” Leonsis said.
There’s merit to Leonsis’s comments. Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger and Wizards GM Will Dawkins both spent time in the front office of the Thunder, who used a long-term approach through the NBA draft and some shrewd trades to build their last two successful eras: one led by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, and the current one anchored by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren.
There is also precedent in D.C. for drastic change. The Wizards were swimming in the NBA’s pool of mediocrity for half a decade, battling for play-in berths and eighth seeds. They signed John Wall and Bradley Beal to massive supermax deals that stifled their future flexibility.
However, a plan centered on tanking does not guarantee long-term success. Just ask the Sixers, the leaders of the “Trust the Process” movement. They have yet to make a conference final since their infamous tanking run in the early- to mid-2010s.
A multiyear tank also tests the commitment of a team’s fan base—and the Wizards already hold the longest conference finals drought in the league. Washington is 27th in attendance, the same as last year, and even guard Jordan Poole admitted after Saturday’s win that he’s been trying to get fans “more engaged.”
It doesn’t help that late last year, Monumental threatened to move its teams—which include the NHL’s Capitals and WNBA’s Mystics—to Virginia following funding disagreements with D.C. officials. That seems to be settled, and Leonsis told FOS the organization takes “a lot of pride in being part of downtown D.C.’s comeback.”
