The Washington Wizards have added a considerable amount of young depth over the past few seasons. While three of their young players are competing overseas in this year’s EuroBasket tournament, one player has remained a little closer to home: 2024 No. 24 pick Kyshawn George.
Wizards’ Kyshawn George Turning Heads in FIBA AmeriCup
George is a Swiss-born player who played professionally in France and enrolled at an American college. However, he’s competing for Team Canada in the FIBA AmeriCup 2025 Tournament as he has Canadian citizenship through his father. While it’s his debut for Canada men’s national squad, he looks to be one of the best players in the tournament this year. As a matter of fact, he already tearing through his first AmeriCup.
Playing the best of any Wizards player across the concurrent FIBA tournaments, the 21-year-old is beginning to showcase how good he could really become.
All-Around Domination
To keep it brief, George wasn’t a huge contributor to Washington’s offense this past season. Yet, his AmeriCup performance generates confidence in his ability to become an elite scorer for the Wizards as early as this season. Over the course of Canada’s AmeriCup run, the 6-foot-7 wing has averaged 15.5 points per game, shooting 56.4 percent from the field and 52.4 percent from three. Among this year’s tournament participants, he’s currently sitting at 12th for scoring and is 5th in three-point percentage.
With that in mind, George hasn’t only wowed with his ability to get the ball in the basket, as he’s taken his do-it-all mentality to another level throughout the tournament. On the one hand, fans are used to seeing his well-rounded skillset. On the other hand, he’s averaging 4.3 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game; all of these averages higher than their NBA counterpart from this past season.
His best outing came in Canada’s dominant quarterfinals victory against Colombia. While earning TCL Player of the Game honors, George finished with 18 points on 75 percent shooting from the field, nailing four threes. He added six rebounds, five assists, one steal and was an impressive +23.
Looking ahead to training camp, George seems to be taking advantage of a possible position battle brewing between himself and 2023 No. 7 pick Bilal Coulibaly. If he can prove to be more consistent than Coulibaly, he could easily find himself in the starting lineup heading into their 2025-26 campaign.
AmeriCup MVP?
George has undoubtedly put his name in the conversation for the tournament MVP award, especially if Canada can continue to dominate their opponents. He’s arguably been the best player on one of the best, if not the best, team throughout the tournament.
As of Saturday, George has 16 percent of fan votes for the award. That puts him third overall, trailing Argentina’s Gonzalo Corbalán and Juan Fernández. If Canada can knock the Argentinian contingent out in their semifinal matchup, George could have the award wrapped up.
The Last Word On Kyshawn George
It’s only been a couple of months, but George has truly reached a new level since the end of last season. Not only is he showing he could become a franchise cornerstone, he’s looking like a candidate for the best player mantle. All in all, so long as the Swiss-Canadian Army Knife keeps his momentum, Washington’s rebuild should go much faster than expected.
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