Point guard Ryan Rollins is balling out right now for the Milwaukee Bucks.
With their backs against the wall after a brutal summer of incessant Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumors, the Bucks needed somebody,
anybody to step up and play at above a veteran-minimum level. Enter Rollins.
Rollins began his career as an afterthought, a mid-second round pick in 2022 to whom the Golden State Warriors granted precious few minutes as a rookie. The summer after his rookie year, he was included in the trade that sent Jordan Poole to the Washington Wizards, who were projected as one of the worst teams in the league. Rollins never managed to crack the rotation in Washington and was waived after just 10 games, after being charged with shoplifting from DMV-area Target stores.
Not the best start to a career.
Rollins spent the rest of the 2023-24 season warming the bench for the Milwaukee Bucks, but he finally proved himself to be an NBA-caliber player the following season by stepping into a reserve guard role for an anemic Bucks roster around Giannis.
Now, in the young 2025-26 season, Rollins is averaging 17 points and 6 assists per game, both career highs by several orders of magnitude. He is also shooting 54% from the field and 41% from deep, and he has stepped into the role of the Bucks’ starting point guard for a team in dire need of anyone not named Giannis to do anything.
Though Rollins is hooping out in Milwaukee, the Wizards probably don’t feel any strong regret for letting him go. His legal issues as an already-marginal member of the Wizards made the juice simply not worth the squeeze, so to speak. Nonetheless, with former Wizards like Rollins, Deni Avdija and Rui Hachimura playing important roles on far more relevant and competitive teams, it is hard not to notice the trend of former Wizards finding their footing elsewhere.
