NORTH AUGUSTA, South Carolina – You don’t have to be a college coach, hiring analyst, or NBA executive to see it featured. It’s obvious within minutes, even to the untrained eye. Long and smooth. Athletic and skilled. He’s the MVP for one of the country’s most popular basketball programs, an electric shot-maker who serves as the kind of sized wing that all the NBA franchises now value greatly.
He just led Nike’s Peach Jam in scoring. If you’ve seen it, it wouldn’t be surprising.
But what is surprising and very unusual is this AJ Dybants He just led Nike’s Peach Jam in scoring despite only finishing student A year of high school two months ago. Most of the players involved in the 17-and-under section here within the Riverview Park Activity Center, located just seven miles and across the Savannah River from Augusta National Golf Club, are about to become seniors. Dybantsa, on the other hand, still has three more years of high school left – provided, of course, that he turns down the chance to one day be reclassified into the class of 2025, a far cry from considering his talent and the fact that he’s currently widely seen as the No. 1 prospect. in the class of 2026.
“What he does is very unique,” said Todd Quarles, who coaches Dybantsa with Expressions Elite, an EYBL program based in Boston. “He’s dominated the 17’s as a freshman, he’s dominated the three-tier scorer… He’s a special basketball player and a special person — and he could be the next great player of a generation. You’re a king.” [Michael] Jordan. You had LeBron [James] and Steve Curry and KD [Kevin Durant]. It could be in the same regard. He has style, flair, ability and charisma.”
Before I go any further, I am compelled to point out that startling prospects appear extraordinarily early at least two or three times a decade. Sometimes it’s LeBron James, the NBA’s leading scorer. Other times, Emoni Bates has just been selected 49th overall in the 2023 NBA Draft after two seasons of college basketball at Memphis and Eastern Michigan. In other words, guaranteeing superstardom for someone who is still at least three years out of the NBA Draft is always a roll of the dice.
However, Dybantsa certainly looks the part.
He’s a 6-foot-8, ocean oriented player who does many of the things that Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Jason Tatum, Brandon Ingram and other big wingers do. He relentlessly attacks on the attack. Guards enthusiastically on defense. He averaged 25.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists at Peach Jam while also making 81.6% of his free throw attempts while going to the line for an average of 9.8 tackles per contest. Adam Finkelstein, director of scouting for 247Sports, tweeted that Dybantsa has “She was as wonderful as anyone else.” This season EYBL. It’s the result of years of hard work and dedication, much of it happening during the COVID-19 pandemic when middle school basketball and grassroots basketball came to a halt.
Although the activities were stopped, Dybantsa never stopped training.
“I was working every day during the quarantine,” Dibanca explained.
“I don’t think it was healthy,” he added with a smile, “but I’ve been exercising every day. Like any rest days. And when I came back, I started to see a collective improvement, when I came back the Mayo circuit.” [in 2021]. That’s when I said I might be able to do something with this. So I kept working. I was outside; There were no gyms available. So I was doing it all outside. Workouts will start at 8 – and I’ll do three a day [because] There was nothing else to do in quarantine. So I was like, let me just hoop. And when I started playing sports, I fell in love with it.
Now it is likely #1 in 2026.
When asked what motivates him currently, Dybantsa didn’t hesitate.
“I’m doing it for my family,” he said. “And I’m doing it for Terrence.”
You may know that Terrence is Terence Clark, a similarly tall and bouncy winger from Expressions Elite who was a top 10 prospect in the class of 2020 and one eventual product played in Kentucky. Tragically, just three months before Clark was selected in the 2021 NBA draft, he died in a car accident at the age of 19.
Dybantsa will never forget to get the news.
“I was going to Made Hoops’ Midwest Mania,” he recalls. “We had a 14-hour bus ride [from Boston to Indianapolis] – Sensei Todd told us. I had heard it on The Gram, but I said, “This is fake.” But then Coach Todd told us. And then there were only 14 hours of silence. Nobody was speaking.
“This was basically my cousin,” Dipanza added. “We’re not related, but that was basically my cousin. Every time I saw him, I was my little brother to him.”
Now, just two years later, Dybantsa is determined to have the career Clark was never allowed to have because his life was short on the corner of Winnetka Street and Nordhoff Street in Los Angeles. There’s no denying that Dybantsa is well on his way, which is among the reasons why first-ballots for future Naismith Memorial Hall of Famers LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony sat on the court for his game Saturday afternoon, as did Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, and Dan Hurley is from Arizona, and Bobby is from Arizona. Hurley, Tony Bennett from Virginia, Andy Enfield from USC, Joanne Howard from Michigan and a slew of other great coaches.
As for The Next Step, Dybantsa will transfer to Prolific Prep in California, where he will play alongside Teran Stokes2 in the class of 2026. Most college coaches I spoke with on Peach Jam believe Dybantsa will eventually re-rank, in part because he’s already 16 years old. Some believe he could eventually sign with the G League Ignite at 17 like Scoot Henderson did two years before he became the third pick in the 2023 NBA draft. When asked about all this, Dybantsa acknowledged reclassification is an “idea” but insisted that “the goal Now it’s college.”
He said, “I promised my mom that I would attend college for at least a year.” “I told her so.”
As usual, we’ll see. Either way, the top sophomore in the nation has spent the past week matching or exceeding every lofty expectation that has been placed upon him. It was never Dybantsa’s goal to be the top player in his class, only because he said he didn’t care about ratings that much. But now that he’s there, the plan is to stay there at least until he reclassifies, attends college, or pursues a professional opportunity.
“If you were in first place, why would you want to hold back?” Dipantsa said. “If I’m No. 1, just stay No. 1. I don’t care about the rankings. But if I’m going to be No. 1, the goal is to stay No. 1.”