AJ Dybantsa, the No. 1 overall pick in this year's draft, will make his regular season NBA debut Wednesday night when the Wizards visit the Cavaliers. Hoops Rumors' Luke Adams reported that the team cleared the forward to play. Dybantsa has been out with a left ankle sprain and missed Washington's first four games of the season. Hoops Rumors added that he was originally listed as questionable, but its summary cuts off before saying what changed.
Sportsnet said the team made the announcement after the morning shootaround. ESPN described the move as an upgrade to "available" for the matchup. Yahoo Sports framed it as a debut, saying the ankle injury sidelined him for four games. None of the four summaries we have gives a minutes restriction or a quote from the team or the player, so how much he plays is unknown.
The four-game figure doesn't match our standings. They show Washington at 2-1 in the 2027 season, with a 128-116 home win over Milwaukee on Oct. 21, a 124-120 win at Chicago on Oct. 24 and a 110-103 loss at Charlotte on Oct. 26. Our game log has Dybantsa in four earlier games, from Oct. 8 to Oct. 16, and those games come before the Oct. 21 date our record starts from. Our data doesn't label them as exhibitions, but they look like the games that account for the gap. In that stretch he scored 11, 14, 14 and 12 points. His best rebounding night was seven against Detroit, and he had four steals at New York. He shot 18 of 41 from the field and 2 of 11 from three over those games, and he played between 15 and 25 minutes each night.
| PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
He returns to a team that has lost its most recent game. Washington's streak stands at L1 after the Charlotte defeat. Over its last six games the club is 3-3, scoring 116.2 points a game and allowing 115.3, a margin of less than one point. Those numbers suggest Dybantsa is joining a team that has stayed close to even without him rather than one that needs rescuing.
Cleveland is also 2-1 and sits third in the Central. The Cavaliers have won two straight, 125-121 over Brooklyn on Oct. 24 and 127-125 over Minnesota on Oct. 26, after a 114-106 loss at Philadelphia on Oct. 22. Both recent wins came by four points or fewer, so Dybantsa's first regular season game should be a close one against a team coming off two tight results.
Washington's next home game after Cleveland is against Charlotte on Oct. 30. That game is the next one where we can see whether Dybantsa's workload grows after the ankle injury.
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