Gatorade State Player of the Yr in Massachusetts as a freshman. Gold medalist with the Usa U16 team in Mexico. Leader in details per sport (25.8) all through the EYBL Peach Jam, when actively playing up. Nike NIL deal. No. 1 participant in the Course of 2025. AJ Dybantsa.
“Playmaker 1st, two-way participant,” Dybantsa suggests of his private scouting report. “Defense and offense, can do a little little bit of almost everything: rebound, rating, move, end. Just a group participant overall, and unselfish.”
We have been next AJ given that he was a lanky eighth-grader hailing from Brockton, MA, documenting his meteoric increase over the earlier couple of years. And despite reclassifying in Oct, Dybantsa clearly remains a single of the best prospects in the country. Make sure you, infer for by yourself. With an unrelenting motor and shot-making skill matched by an equally eccentric personality, it was a no-brainer that the most effective player in his class is using the pen to enable officially relaunch our historic Basketball Diary.
But extra on that later. This is now. And now is Dybantsa’s time. He staked that assert not also very long ago.
“When I was in third quality, I had the dream of heading to the NBA, but it wasn’t definitely reasonable right until Covid yr. That’s when I started off taking it outrageous critical,” Dybantsa claims. “There were no fitness centers available and I uncovered myself just doing work out outside each day. I just took off. That’s when the rankings began coming, that is when the interest started off coming and I was like, This could be a fact.”
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Immediately after dominating the local New England competitiveness as a freshman—posting 19.1 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.5 blocks a contest—reality established in additional this past June when Dybantsa elected to transfer to countrywide powerhouse Prolific Prep. The greater competition plus transferring in with a host family—on best of living on the reverse coastline as your quick family—would be a difficult transition for any teenager.
“The most challenging aspect [about being AJ] is just men and women forgetting that I’m a kid,” Dybantsa tells SLAM. “Like, I’m 17 several years previous, I have a life outdoors of basketball. But they just see the world-wide-web side of me so they just think everything’s bouquets and butterflies, when it’s truly not.”
While Dybantsa finds his footing, he leans on the lifetime classes and function ethic instilled in him by his Congolese father and Jamaican mother. “Nothing’s provided to you, almost everything is acquired,” he claims of his parents’ reminders. “It was huge for me in my life advancement.”
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Schools are swarming, the League’s by now inside of perspective and he just signed on the dotted line with The Swoosh. SLAM has been masking large university hoopers for a minute (30 yrs, tbh!) and we can say with self-assurance, the up coming modern-day-working day superior college superstar is listed here, and his title is AJ Dybantsa.
Portraits by Marcus Stevens.
The post Class of 2025 No. 1 Recruit AJ Dybantsa is the Activity’s Subsequent Significant University Superstar appeared initially on SLAM.