MONTREAL — It’s no secret that Bilal Coulibaly and Johnny Davis occupy different places in the Washington Wizards’ rebuild.
Even with a trio of promising rookies now on the roster, you could make a convincing case that Coulibaly, the seventh pick in the 2023 draft, remains the franchise’s most promising, most important player for the future. On the other hand, Davis — the 10th pick in the 2022 draft —is fighting to keep his foothold in the NBA.
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But despite that major difference, Coulibaly and Davis showed Sunday night in the Wizards’ preseason opener against the Toronto Raptors that they have something in common: Each of them improved during the offseason.
Coulibaly looks stronger, more confident and more skilled. More on that crucial development in a minute.
What Davis has accomplished arguably is more interesting. During his first two professional seasons, his shooting stroke had devolved into a hitchy, discombobulated, uncomfortable mess.
“The past two years,” Davis told The Athletic on Sunday night, “a development coach from each year has been tinkering with my shot, messing with it. So I came back into this year, and I said, ‘Nobody is touching my jump shot. I’m just going to leave it as it is, leave it comfortable.’ And they’ve left me alone about it. So, it feels really good right now. I’ve been working on it the whole summer, so I’m just glad to see it pay off.”
Davis said he made those tweaks with the help of his trainer in Wisconsin, James Fox.
The hitch is gone, as Davis demonstrated throughout his individual pregame shooting routine and during his first possession on the court Sunday night. Late in the third quarter, with only several seconds remaining on the shot clock, Davis received a low, off-target pass from Bub Carrington and elevated, hoisting the ball over a defender’s outstretched hand and draining the shot.
The first player on the Wizards’ bench to rise when the shot went in?
It was Coulibaly.
By that time, Coulibaly’s night was already over, as he went 4 of 6 from the floor, with perhaps none of those makes more impressive than a drive to the rim midway through the third quarter. Dribbling with his right hand with Toronto’s Gradey Dick defending, Coulibaly crossed over to his left hand, accelerated toward the rim and released a floater with his left hand. The ball sailed through the hoop, and Coulibaly drew a contact foul.
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This is a new and improved Coulibaly. He’s taller, now 6-foot-7 1/2 without shoes, and weighing 205 pounds, up 10 pounds from the end of his rookie season. He’s more sure of himself now that he’s played a year in the NBA and helped France win the silver medal in the Summer Olympics.
“I just feel like I know what’s going on on the court,” Coulibaly said Sunday night. “Last year, there was some times where I felt awkward on the court and I didn’t know what I was doing for real. But now I know what I gotta do, what Coach really wants me to do. So, I know where my spots are. I know where I’m going to get the ball. It makes it way easier for me.”
And as his drive and runner in the third quarter showed, the right-wrist fracture he suffered last March that ended his rookie season prematurely might have been a blessing in disguise. It forced him to concentrate on developing his coordination with his off-hand.
“Oh, man,” he said, breaking into a wide smile, “you don’t even know how much I worked on my left hand. It was crazy. I can shoot with my left hand now, too, because I’ve been working so much on my left hand. It was like six weeks straight shooting with my left hand, dribbling, passing, all of that.”
As coach Brian Keefe already has said during training camp, he intends to assign Coulibaly every game to guard opponents’ most dangerous perimeter players. But Keefe also expects to have Coulibaly take more of a role handling the ball and initiating the offense.
Unforeseen circumstances could speed up that transition. During a practice Saturday at McGill University, veteran guard Malcolm Brogdon injured his right hand, prompting Wizards officials to send him back to Washington for detailed imaging exams to determine the severity of the injury. Even before that imaging took place, a league source told The Athletic that Brogdon is expected to miss at least one month.
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Brogdon’s absence likely will force Carrington and fellow rookie Kyshawn George into larger roles, too.
Davis, a natural shooting guard, remains buried on the depth chart behind fellow wings Corey Kispert and Coulibaly and also behind Carrington and George, who can play both guard spots.
With those players ahead of him in the pipeline, Davis’ long-term Wizards future is, at best, in doubt. Team officials have until the end of October to decide whether they will exercise the franchise’s team options for the 2025-26 season on Davis and forward Patrick Baldwin Jr.
Davis’ team option for that season is worth approximately $6.7 million, according to Spotrac, while Baldwin’s is worth $4.4 million.
It would not be a surprise if the Wizards decline those options, which would put Davis and Baldwin in line to become unrestricted free agents next summer. Davis was the final first-round pick of Tommy Sheppard’s tenure as general manager, while Baldwin came to Washington from Golden State with Jordan Poole, Ryan Rollins, a 2027 second-round pick and a top-20 protected 2030 first-round pick for Chris Paul.
To put it another way: Davis and Baldwin were not drafted by the current front office, which is headed by Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger and Wizards general manager Will Dawkins.
Davis is also vulnerable because he simply did not play well in either of his first two seasons. His shooting was a central problem. And while he’s not saying he’ll immediately turn into a knockdown shooter, he does sound much more optimistic that he has rediscovered his groove.
“It got bad,” Davis said. “I knocked it all down and started from scratch.”
—The Athletic’s David Aldridge contributed to this report
(Photo of Bilal Coulibaly and Kelly Olynyk: Eric Bolte / Imagn Images)
Josh Robbins is a senior writer for The Athletic. He began covering the Washington Wizards in 2021 after spending more than a decade on the Orlando Magic beat for The Athletic and the Orlando Sentinel, where he worked for 18 years. His work has been honored by the Football Writers Association of America, the Green Eyeshade Awards and the Florida Society of News Editors. He served as president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association from 2014 to 2023. Josh is a native of the greater Washington, D.C., area. Follow Josh on Twitter @JoshuaBRobbins