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He turned to Michael Winger, then an executive with the Los Angeles Clippers who had never run his own shop. Winger recruited Will Dawkins, a young and sharp talent evaluator with whom Winger had worked in Oklahoma City, to be his general manager. The assignment: Tell Ted Leonsis the reality even if it might not be what he wanted to hear. “He said to me three or four times, ‘You know, this could take four or five years,’” Leonsis said of Winger. “And I said, ‘I totally understand. I’ve been through the deconstructing stage with the Caps, (the NHL team Leonsis also owns). I lived through it the first time with the Wizards. I’m prepared. … I don’t see any other path to get out of where we are than deconstruct.’ And they executed it very, very well.”
Sunday's lottery luck provides the potential for a new, foundational pillar for a franchise used to disaster always being around the corner. "[Sunday,] I feel, was an incredible day of luck," Leonsis said. "If you watch 'Final Destination,' that's all I could think of was, 'Here I am. I'm going to end up in the hospital. I will have lost an eye and we'll pick fifth."
Ted Leonsis has never hidden his skepticism about the glamour of hosting an All-Star Game, often noting that the leagues, not the home teams, run the show and divvy up the best seats. But with a sweeping, multiyear renovation of Capital One Arena underway in D.C., the owner and chairman of Monumental Sports & Entertainment says Washington is ready to raise its hand again for the NBA and NHL’s marquee midseason showcases. “When our building is up and functioning, I would hope we’d be considered for an NBA All-Star Game,” Leonsis told WTOP. “The NHL All-Star Game … we’d love to be able to host it.”
The renovation is expected to wrap ahead of the 2027-28 season, meaning any All-Star bid could still be years away. Capital One Arena is scheduled to close this summer as work continues. Phase two focuses on new and relocated entrances and a reimagined exterior; that portion is expected to be completed in September 2026, with additional exterior work continuing into 2027. “Then, we’ll be done and we’ll have a pristine, beautiful, great new experience,” Leonsis said. “And then we can start to bid, and I’ll put my hand up for both of those games.”
I need to talk with Will, Ted, Zach, and kind of figure out what the actual plan is, and then just kind of go from there,” Davis said. “I talked briefly (Friday) with Will. Obviously, at this time, every year, you want to compete for championships and stuff like that. That’s obviously the main focus, getting to that place. Conversations are going to be held to see about getting to that space. I’ve been everywhere the last two years. I want to see the plan, hear the plan, see the vision. Bringing Trae (Young) here and other things in store, what they’re thinking of doing, I want to have those conversations with them and see what happens. The city is obviously phenomenal.”
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As long as this is truly the thought process of the Wizards’ basketball people and not the result of pressure from the team’s owner, Ted Leonsis, or the league to stop with the tanking and get with the competing — I was told strongly Wednesday by team sources that was not the case — then fine. Let’s see how this plays out. We likely won’t get much clarity the rest of this season. Young has yet to play a minute for the team while rehabbing his sprained right MCL. Davis’ return-to-play schedule, even before the trade, wasn’t until early March, six weeks after his mid-January hand surgery.
But he’ll be doing a game broadcast for Amazon on Thursday, when he returns to Capital One Arena to do color commentary for the Wizards’ game against the Milwaukee Bucks. That isn’t a coincidence. The organization is also honoring Wall, the team’s all-time leader in assists (5,282) and steals (976) during the game, which is being billed as “John Wall appreciation night,” part of multiple festivities honoring Wall, the top pick in the 2010 draft. “John is in our pantheon,” Wizards owner and governor Ted Leonsis said.
And that makes Thursday more special for Wall. “I think just feeling the love, getting that appreciation,” Wall said. “And I think most for me, just seeing my kids (Ace and Amir) there. That’s what it’s all about for me. They didn’t get to see me play in the element and be here, but they was born here. And they get to see what’s it’s all about. And I think bringing my friends back, everybody, kind of like when I came back and played, when I was with the Clippers. “Feeling that kind of love, but now it’s like I don’t have to play. I’ll be sitting on the sidelines, broadcasting, in a new career, new role for me.”
The team is not retiring his jersey on Thursday. The latest chapter in that saga came at Trae Young’s introductory news conference Jan. 9, when he incorrectly said that Wall’s No. 2 was going up in the rafters at this celebration. Honest mistake. But since Young brought it up: What about that, Ted? “No one should feel insecure about our relationship with John,” Leonsis said in a conference room at the team’s downtown offices earlier this month. “It’s not going to happen on bobblehead night. Really? Do you think we would do something big and important with a bobblehead? We’re not announcing anything (Thursday). “I look at it as, we’re in this long relationship with John. He’s the most important player since I’ve owned the team, and we have a great relationship. I don’t feel like I really need to address it. It will happen when it happens.”
Greg Rosenstein: Ted Leonsis says he wants to buy the Nationals and D.C. United. Called it a “mistake” to look outside the local market. On Nats: Leonsis has a good relationship with the Lerner family but “it takes two to tango and they aren’t ready to sell.” @CNBC #gameplan25
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Ted Leonsis: “My teams aren’t for sale, but I’m rooting for them to get the highest valuation possible. It’s a gem of a property. My organization does more revenues than the Celtics. Now, I own a basketball team, a hockey team, a women’s team, the building, the network. I think that’s the trend. I think you’ll see lots of mergers. You have to get scale. If you’re to be a media company, you have to build the audience. You have to be able to build a way to cross-promote year-round. That’s why all these real estate areas are popping up. Hey, we’re going to bring people in, can they spend a couple hours beforehand or after the game? So we’re running these as really, really big businesses.”
“We weren’t tanking. We were developing players. It’s a little different than maybe what some of the other teams’ strategy was,” said Leonsis, CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which also owns the NHL’s Capitals and WNBA’s Mystics.
Better late than never for Ted Leonsis and Muriel Bowser. The owner of the Wizards, Capitals and Mystics, along with the G League’s Go-Go, and Washington’s mayor took their victory lap Thursday morning, in what will, if all goes according to plan, be a centerpiece of an $800 million renovation of Capital One Arena. The renovation will keep the Wizards and Capitals in the building through their 2049-50 seasons and allow for additional future events to be held in the building, which is open approximately 220 to 230 nights a year.
“I think the mayor’s being modest,” Leonsis said after a ceremonial groundbreaking, which included NBA commissioner Adam Silver and local officials who helped get the legislation through the city council. “As we were starting to iterate our showings of preliminary plans, she said ‘make it more connected to D.C.,'” Leonsis continued. “‘Make it modern, airy, I want to see a lot of light. I want to see connection with the streets … there will be now, just as there is at the art museum across the street, a roof that will connect this. And this, still, you’ll be able to walk through from 6th Street to 7th Street. We’ve been able to amalgamate, if you will, a sizable footprint. And once you have the space, you can innovate, you can make those investments.”