Everyone has already dismissed the New York Knicks’ control over the Washington Wizards’ 2026 first-round pick as immaterial. It has top-eight protection, so the bad-on-purpose Wizards need to end up with the No. 9 or later selection for it to convey. That’s clearly not going to happen.
Right?
Not so fast.
Washington has been playing .500 basketball since the middle of December. It has not faced a murderer’s row of opponents, but with every win, it increases the chance that New York actually winds up with an extra first-round pick.
Not that the Knicks will lose sleep if this doesn’t pan out. They acquired the Wizards pick, along with two other conditional firsts from Denver and Milwaukee, in exchange for the 2022 selection that became Ousmane Dieng. That move helped maximize the Knicks’ financial flexibility during the summer in which they signed Jalen Brunson to one of the best contracts ever.
The Knicks should be rooting for Wizards victories
The Wizards still have the NBA’s second-worst record. If the season ended right now, they could fall no lower than sixth on the draft board.
Still, Washington is just three wins away from having a bottom-six record. If it finishes sixth in the lottery order, there would be a 3.9 percent chance New York ends up with the ninth or 10th pick. The Wizards are also just four wins off the seventh-worst record. If they wind up seventh in the lottery order, the Knicks’ shot at getting their pick jumps to 14.2 percent.
For the ultra-ambitious, the Wizards are five wins off the eighth and ninth spots in the lottery. If they land in one of those slots, the Knicks’ odds of getting their pick explode to somewhere between 73 percent and just over 81 percent.
Make no mistake, these are varying degrees of long-shot scenarios. Washington is aware of its draft-pick obligations to New York. The front office isn’t going to actively chase victories.
At the same time, the Wizards don’t necessarily have any singular player driving this recent stretch of success. Making trades or shutting people down doesn’t impact their floor as much as other teams. The NBA’s recent changes to injury reporting and protocols could also make it harder for them to enter a full-blown nosedive.
This pick is valuable to New York no matter what
Following this subplot is important. The ability to dangle another first-round pick in trade talks over the offseason would be massive. Heck, the pick has more value in any midseason pursuits if other teams think it might convey.
Even if it doesn’t, having control over Washington’s 2026 and 2027 seconds is far from nothing. This year’s would currently clock in at No. 32—a fringe first-rounder. And second-round prospects have more value to the Knicks and other teams facing prohibitively expensive cores, thanks to their cost-controlled salaries. Tyler Kolek is real-time proof. The No. 34 pick in 2024 is playing out a four-year, $9 million contract.
Failing all of that, New York has already won the transaction tree associated with this Wizards pick. Not only did it help save money during the Summer of Brunson, but the Knicks later used the Milwaukee first as part of their Mikal Bridges package, and flipped the Denver pick in a deal that landed a Detroit pick they shipped to Minnesota for Karl-Anthony Towns.
Knowing all of that, anything New York mines out of the Wizards’ pick obligation is gravy. But there exists a chance, however slight, that it becomes so much more.