Bilal Coulibaly’s fourth season in Washington is shaping up as a real test, and not just because the Wizards have changed so much around him.
There was a time when Coulibaly looked like one of the centerpieces of the rebuild, the first prospect drafted by the franchise’s revamped front office in the summer of 2023. Back then, the runway felt long. He had three years to grow into whatever role Washington wanted him to fill next.
Now the roster around him looks completely different, and Coulibaly is one of the longest-tenured players left. Tristan Vukcevic, his 2023 draft classmate, is right there with him, while Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Poole are gone and the team is instead built around Trae Young, Anthony Davis and the other additions brought in during that stretch.
That leaves Coulibaly in a tricky spot. He still matters to Washington’s future, but he no longer sits at the center of it in the way he once did.
AJ Dybantsa, Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George and Tre Johnson all appear to sit ahead of him in the hierarchy, and even Will Riley, only one season into proving himself as the No. 23 pick, looks like a stronger candidate for extended minutes as a distributor. Coulibaly’s path forward is less about being featured and more about making sure he doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.
The issue has always been clear enough: he never arrived with a ready-made scoring game. His athleticism and defensive willingness have always stood out, but the shooting numbers have not. Coulibaly has career splits of 42.5% from the floor and 31.3% from 3-point range, and those marks make it hard to keep treating him like an untouchable building block.
Washington also has a deadline coming fast. The team has until the start of the upcoming regular season to decide whether to offer him a rookie extension.
If that doesn’t happen, the conversation gets pushed to the summer of 2027, when restricted free agency enters the picture. That puts real pressure on both sides, especially if Coulibaly and the front office are not aligned on what he is worth.
The on-court role is changing too. Coulibaly is headed back to the bench full-time for the first time since his rookie season, with Young, Dybantsa and George filling the starting wing and perimeter spots. There simply isn’t a clear opening for him to slide back into the first unit.
Still, there is a path for him to matter. Playing next to more talented creators should make life easier, not harder. Dybantsa, whose offensive style is the more polished version of Coulibaly’s springy, above-the-rim game, should feast on Young’s lobs, and Coulibaly can learn from that same kind of cutting-and-finishing workload.
He’ll also need to adjust to spending more time off the ball than he did late last season, when Washington used him in a way that showed some comfort as a point-of-attack threat. The lesson from that stretch was simple: he attacked mismatches and open lanes to the rim without hesitation.
That aggression has to stick. So does the defense.
Those are the traits that can keep him relevant in a rotation that suddenly looks crowded and competitive. The second unit will need stopping power, and Coulibaly should be able to supply it.
He may not be the franchise centerpiece some once imagined, but there is still a useful player here, one who can help Washington in a variety of ways if he stays adaptable. The next step is proving it, and doing it in a role that looks very different from the one he once seemed destined to own.
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