1
Jul
Team Profile
Washington Wizards: Five things you need to know
Image created using AI Technology
Xavier Cooks is the only Australian to have played for Washington, arriving as reigning NBL MVP
- Xavier Cooks is the only Australian to have played a game for the Washington Wizards.
- Alex Sarr went from the Perth Wildcats to the second pick of the 2024 draft.
- Washington went 17-65, the worst record in the league, and won the number one pick.
Washington has the shortest list of Australians in this series, and one of the strongest connections to Australian basketball.
Only one Australian has played a game for the Wizards. Xavier Cooks arrived in March 2023 as the reigning NBL Most Valuable Player and a two-time championship winner with the Sydney Kings, played 10 games, and was gone by October.
But look past the passport and the picture changes. Washington used the second pick of the 2024 draft on Alex Sarr, who came directly from the Perth Wildcats. Dante Exum was briefly on the roster in 2026 without playing a game. Cooks came out of the Sydney Kings.
This is a club that keeps looking at the NBL. It just has not signed many Australians while doing it.
Australians who have played for the Washington Wizards
Xavier Cooks is the only Australian to have played a regular-season game for this franchise.
The 203cm forward from Ballarat earned the move the hard way. After college at Winthrop and a first professional season in Germany, he joined the Sydney Kings in 2019 and became the best forward in the NBL. He won the championship and Grand Final MVP in 2022, then the league MVP award and a second championship in 2023.
Washington signed him in March 2023. He made his NBA debut against Sacramento and played 10 games, averaging 3.8 points and 3.8 rebounds, finishing with a double-double as a starter in the Wizards' final game of the season. He was waived in October 2023.
Cooks went to the Chiba Jets in Japan, won an EASL championship, and returned to the Sydney Kings.
Dante Exum belongs in the story but not on the list.
The Melbourne guard was included in the three-team trade that brought Anthony Davis to Washington from Dallas on February 5, 2026, then waived. He never played a game for the club. He had not played at all in 2025-26 after complications from an offseason knee procedure that required follow-up surgery.
It is a technicality worth being precise about. Exum was a Wizard on paper for a fortnight and never took the floor, so the answer to how many Australians have played for Washington is still one.
2026-27 team snapshot
Washington had the worst season in basketball and has spent the offseason behaving like a club in a hurry.
The Wizards went 17-65, the second worst record in franchise history and the worst in the NBA last season. The reward was the number one pick, and they used it on AJ Dybantsa from BYU.
The roster around him has changed almost completely. Trae Young re-signed on a four-year deal worth around USD $212 million with a player option in the fourth year. Deandre Ayton arrived from the Lakers on July 3 for Jaden Hardy and second-round picks. Anthony Davis and D'Angelo Russell came in the February trade with Dallas and Charlotte.
Davis is the complication. He is seeking a four-year maximum extension worth USD $275 million and Washington has shown no intention of paying it, with negotiations opening when he becomes extension eligible on August 6. He has been linked with Golden State, and the Wizards are understood to want multiple first-round picks and swaps in any deal.
Around all of that sits the young core the rebuild was actually about: Alex Sarr, Tre Johnson, Bilal Coulibaly and Kyshawn George.
Sarr is the one Australian readers should watch. The former Perth Wildcat has grown into the player Washington hoped for, averaging 19.1 points and 8.6 rebounds, as we reported in April.
Why the Wizards matter
Every NBA franchise has a story.
The Boston Celtics built a dynasty. The Los Angeles Lakers became basketball's glamour club. The San Antonio Spurs defined sustained excellence.
Washington is the franchise that has moved cities, changed names four times, won once, and kept going anyway.
Founded in Chicago, relocated to Baltimore, relocated again to Washington, renamed from Bullets to Wizards in 1997 because the owner no longer wanted a gun reference on the jersey. One championship in 65 years, in 1978. And a fanbase that has stayed through nearly five decades since.
For Australian readers the interest is in the pipeline rather than the history. Washington has twice gone shopping in the NBL, once for a 27-year-old MVP and once for a teenager who became the second pick of a draft.
Chicago, Baltimore and the road to Washington
The franchise was the NBA's first expansion team, founded in 1961 as the Chicago Packers.
Two years later it moved to Baltimore and became the Bullets. Ten years after that it moved again, to Washington, where it has stayed. The name changed to the Wizards in 1997.
Four different identities in 36 years is not the mark of a settled organisation, and the early decades reflected it.
Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes and the 1978 championship
The second pick of the 1968 draft changed everything.
Wes Unseld won Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season, becoming only the second player in NBA history to do it after Wilt Chamberlain. He was 201cm, played centre, and rebounded and outlet-passed like nobody else in the league.
Paired with Elvin Hayes, Unseld took the club to four NBA Finals in a decade. The one they won came in 1978, beating the Seattle SuperSonics in seven games.
It remains the only championship in franchise history.
Michael Jordan in Washington
Michael Jordan came out of retirement for a second time to play for the Wizards from 2001 to 2003.
He was 38 when he started and 40 when he finished, and Washington did not make the playoffs in either season. The basketball was not the point. It was the last time anyone saw him play, and it happened here.
Wall, Beal and the long rebuild
The most enjoyable modern Wizards team belonged to John Wall and Bradley Beal.
Wall was the first pick of the 2010 draft and Beal the third pick of 2012, and together they took Washington to the playoffs in four of five seasons from 2014 to 2018. Beal later set the franchise single-season scoring record with 31.3 points a game in 2020-21.
Neither got past the conference semi-finals. Both eventually left, and the rebuild that followed has produced four straight seasons outside the playoffs and, finally, a number one pick.
The greatest Wizards of all time
Wes Unseld is the greatest player in franchise history, an MVP, a champion and later the head coach.
Elvin Hayes was the scorer alongside him and one of the great power forwards of the 1970s.
Earl Monroe brought the flair in the Baltimore years, and Gilbert Arenas was the most electric player of the 2000s before injuries took him.
John Wall and Bradley Beal defined the most recent era anyone enjoyed.
And Xavier Cooks, for 10 games in 2023, is the whole of Australia's presence in this franchise's history.
Five Fast Facts
1. Xavier Cooks is the only Australian to have played a regular-season game for the Washington Wizards.
2. Alex Sarr was drafted second overall in 2024 directly from the Perth Wildcats.
3. The franchise began as the Chicago Packers in 1961 and has carried four different names.
4. Washington's only championship came in 1978, beating Seattle in seven games.
5. Michael Jordan played the last two seasons of his career for the Wizards, from 2001 to 2003.
Historical Timeline
- 1961: Founded as the Chicago Packers, the NBA's first expansion team.
- 1963: Move to Baltimore and become the Bullets.
- 1968: Draft Wes Unseld second overall.
- 1969: Unseld wins Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season.
- 1973: Relocate to Washington.
- 1978: Beat Seattle in seven games to win the championship.
- 1997: Change the name from Bullets to Wizards.
- 2001: Michael Jordan comes out of retirement to play for Washington.
- 2010: Draft John Wall first overall.
- 2023: Sign Xavier Cooks, the first Australian to play for the club.
- 2024: Draft Alex Sarr second overall from the Perth Wildcats.
- 2026: Finish 17-65 and draft AJ Dybantsa first overall.
Looking ahead
Washington has the first pick, a maximum-contract point guard, an unhappy superstar and the worst record in the league behind it.
AJ Dybantsa alongside Alex Sarr and Tre Johnson is a young core worth watching. Trae Young on a four-year deal says the club thinks the losing is over. The Anthony Davis situation says the roster is not finished changing, and August 6 is the date that decides it.
There is no Australian on the roster and no obvious one arriving.
What there is instead is a club that has twice looked at the NBL and liked what it saw, and a centre from the Perth Wildcats who is now the best player in the building.
