Will Riley entered the season with momentum, but the minutes haven’t followed.
The Washington Wizards took him 21st overall in 2025, and he spent his rookie year giving them real reasons to pay attention. Riley averaged 10.3 points per game, and over seven games in April he pushed that up to 18 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 3.6 assists per contest. In a rough 2025-26 season for Washington, he stood out as one of the brighter spots.
Then came Summer League, where he kept flashing upside. Riley put up 25 points in each of the two games he played before the Wizards shut him down. Those performances made him one of the more interesting young names heading into this season.
That’s why his current role is so jarring. Riley has been left out of the rotation to start the year, didn’t play at all against the Milwaukee Bucks, and then logged only garbage-time minutes against the Toronto Raptors on Friday.
The strange part is that there doesn’t appear to be a clear basketball reason for it. If Riley were being edged out by players who clearly offer the same skills at a higher level, the move would make sense. But Washington’s roster does not really present that case.
Beyond four-time All-Star and one-time assist champion Trae Young, the Wizards don’t have many creators or ball handlers who can set the table for others. That’s the lane Riley can fill. At 6'10", he brings the kind of self-creation and playmaking that can help a second unit find some life.
His shot is still uneven at times, but the overall package is hard to ignore. The longer Riley stays on the outside looking in, the tougher it gets to explain why he isn’t being trusted when the games matter.
The timing only makes it more puzzling. AJ Dybantsa, the face of the franchise and a player at the same position, is out with an ankle injury suffered in the team’s final preseason game. So even with that opening, Riley still hasn’t found real minutes.
After Friday’s loss, head coach Brian Keefe answered questions about why Riley hasn’t seen the floor yet with this:
The issue may not go away, either. With Dybantsa eventually returning, the Wizards’ depth is only going to grow. That leaves the obvious question hanging there: if Riley can’t crack the rotation now, when will he?
Washington can keep winning while still making sure its young players develop, and Riley looks like the clearest case for that balance. Right now, giving him a real role feels like the move that serves both goals.
In Other News...
Wizards Loss To Toronto Exposed A Problem They Still Havent Solved
The Wizards 112-102 loss to Toronto was another reminder that their offense can still get bogged down when a defense takes away the first option and forces the rest of the roster to manufacture clean looks. The Raptors made life difficult throughout, and Washington also came up short on the glass, leaving too many possessions on the table in a game that never really found a rhythm on the Wizards side.
Bub Carrington brought energy and defensive effort off the bench, continuing to carve out a more stable reserve role, but the overall scoring burden was still hard to balance. Anthony Davis also had a tough night, finishing with 9 points on 3-of-12 shooting, and for a team trying to find more reliable answers, nights like this keep exposing the same issue without providing a clear fix. [Read more 🡒]
Bulls Miss Out On A Debut Fans Wanted To See
The wait for AJ Dybantsas NBA debut will have to continue a little longer. The Wizards announced the No. 1 overall pick will miss their upcoming game against the Bulls because of a left ankle sprain, a setback that has kept him sidelined since Washingtons final preseason game and pushed his absence to three straight games.
For a team that already had plenty of attention on its young centerpiece, the timing is frustrating even if the injury is being treated as day-to-day. Chicago will still have to wait on the debut fans have been circling, while Washington keeps monitoring a situation that remains fluid heading into the next stretch of the schedule. [Read more 🡒]
Brian Keefe Already Faces One Wizards Problem He Cant Ignore
The Wizards loss to the Raptors offered an early reminder that Brian Keefes rotation may need a quicker adjustment than expected. Washingtons three-point shooting was too thin to keep pace, with only Trae Young and Tre Johnson hitting multiple triples, and that kind of imbalance puts extra pressure on the rest of the lineup to create cleaner looks and better spacing.
Keefe has options to tinker with, especially as the roster waits for AJ Dybantsa to get back into the mix. The question now is how aggressively he wants to reshuffle the offense to help the Wizards shoot better and score more consistently, because the current setup is already leaving too much burden on too few capable shooters. [Read more 🡒]