Baby-faced Bilal Coulibaly, with an easy smile and open hands the size of dinner plates, ushered in the new dawn for the Washington Wizards on Saturday in a news conference where new was the theme du jour. Many of the holdovers from Washington’s former front office were standing in the back of a room at the Anthem in D.C.’s Southwest Waterfront, but up on the podium everything looked new as the No. 7 pick in Thursday’s draft was introduced.
Coulibaly’s black-checkered sports coat looked new. The diamond chain around his neck and matching wristlet — nothing too flashy for an 18-year-old — sparkled like new. The peach fuzz peeking out from his chin surely made its debut last week.
But the biggest hint that Monumental Basketball President Michael Winger and General Manager Will Dawkins are breaking with the old, if a full week of trading away the team’s veterans didn’t make it clear? The pristine white Wizards jersey Coulibaly held up for the cameras: No. 0.
Yes, there’s a new Agent Zero in town. And he’s French.
Coulibaly will be the first Wizards player to don No. 0 since Gilbert Arenas, who last suited up for Washington in 2010, when Coulibaly was 6 years old and still playing, of course, soccer — he didn’t pick up basketball until he was 10, when he started watching the NBA to follow his father’s favorite player, Carmelo Anthony. He was well prepared nonetheless when asked what the number meant to him.
As he did in response to every question Saturday, he answered humbly, peering over the crowd with a smile and his head slightly bowed as teens sometimes do.
“Actually, I’m very proud to wear that number,” Coulibaly said in perfect English. “I know Agent Zero was the last one to wear that, and all the respect to him. I had a great year last year with that number. I hope that continues.”
The Wizards’ newest lottery pick will be a perfect test of Dawkins’s revamped organization. Developing young players hasn’t been Washington’s strength in years past, and Coulibaly will need lots of developing. A 6-foot-8 wing with a 7-2 wingspan who was brought up as a guard until he had a growth spurt at 16, Coulibaly was described by Dawkins on draft night as “a ball of clay.”
Coulibaly considers himself a guard and described himself as a two-way player who spends lots of time watching Brooklyn wing Mikal Bridges. “I just want to see how he defends, how he attacks pick and rolls and everything,” he said.
His shooting will need work, and his frame will need a deluge of calories to withstand the NBA’s physicality and demanding schedule. He has pro experience but not much — he began the 2022-23 season splitting time between steamrolling competitors in the under-21 French league and playing catch-up with the Metropolitans 92 senior team.
What he possesses most is potential. Dawkins first started seriously tracking him when Coulibaly was a member of France’s under-18 national team and met him at a Metropolitans 92 practice this past spring. Coulibaly’s frame got scouts excited: he has an impressively low defensive stance for someone with legs that long and ballhandling ability that the Wizards will want to explore during the summer league.
Dawkins finally got him in the gym in recent weeks for Coulibaly’s only in-person stop before the draft. (Dawkins, by the way, in reporting that Coulibaly flew into Reagan National Airport, checked with reporters to make sure that DCA is “the close airport” and Dulles is “the faraway one.” Hey, everyone’s new.)
“He’s got a rare mix of youth, elite athleticism, speed with a skill set to continue to handle the ball, pass and defend at a high level. He’s a two-way player that we have a lot of confidence in. … It’s a tremendous starter’s kit,” Dawkins said Saturday.
“The basketball will take care of itself. The work will take care of itself. He’s coming in with substance, as a competitor, as a person and as a worker. … Got a long way to go, a lot of stuff to work on, but there’s a lot there to tap into.”
Coulibaly was welcomed to D.C. by a text from Jordan Poole, the recently acquired guard from Golden State whose tenure with the Wizards is about six hours longer than his. He has FaceTimed former Wizards players and fellow Frenchmen Ian Mahinmi and Kevin Seraphin, but other than that, there were few nods to Washington’s history at Saturday’s introduction. With Winger and Dawkins masterminding a rebuild, the Wizards are looking forward now. Out with the old; they’re starting from zero.