By Rory Maher | at July 30, 2026 3:27 pm
Wizards wing Jamir Watkins underwent successful surgery on Thursday to repair a torn ACL in his left knee, the team announced (via Twitter).
According to Josh Robbins of The Athletic (Twitter link), Watkins’ injury occurred in Washington’s Summer League opener in Las Vegas on July 9, when the Wizards faced the Jazz. Watkins recorded two points and four rebounds in 20 minutes in the four-point victory.
It’s a devastating blow for the 25-year-old guard/forward, who was selected 43rd overall in the 2025 draft.
Watkins, who signed a two-way contract last July, played a limited role at the NBA level during the first half of 2025/26. However, he became a rotation regular for the tanking Wizards down the stretch of his rookie season and was promoted to a two-year standard contract at the end of February.
Rather than exercising their team $2.15MM team option on Watkins in late June, the Wizards turned down that option and tendered him a $2.39MM qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent. Watkins could have signed that one-year qualifying offer to lock in that $2.39M salary, which would have been guaranteed.
Instead, Watkins re-signed with the Wizards a couple days later on another two-way contract, which is non-guaranteed and only worth $679K, half of the rookie minimum. It’s unclear why Watkins didn’t sign that QO to stay on the 15-man standard roster; perhaps the plan was to convert him at a later date.
More to come…
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