Aj Dybantsa Shrugs Off Small-Market NBA Landing Before Sunday Lottery
aj dybantsa is not worried about ending up in a small NBA market as the draft lottery approaches Sunday. The presumptive first pick in the 2026 NBA Draft said his path has already prepared him for attention, whether it comes from Sacramento, Indiana, or somewhere else.
AJ Dybantsa and Brockton
“Obviously being from Brockton, I’m not really from a big market, I’m not really from a big market,” he said. “I’ve created my own path and my team.”
He added, “My parents have been doing a great job of just putting me out there,” and, “So, I’ve been in the spotlight for a long time.” At 19, Dybantsa has already built a profile that reaches well beyond his Massachusetts hometown, which has a population of roughly 106,000.
BYU, Nike, and the draft
Dybantsa signed an NIL deal with Nike in January 2024, and Nike recently announced that the deal will be extended into a professional basketball contract. He played one season at BYU, where he was named the Big 12 Freshman of the Year and a consensus first-team All-American before declaring for the NBA Draft two weeks ago.
That rise started well before college. He was the Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year as a freshman at St. Sebastian’s School in Needham, transferred to Prolific Prep in Napa after his freshman season, reclassified to the class of 2025 and spent his final year of high school basketball at Utah Prep Academy. He was also the consensus top player in the 2025 recruiting class and chose BYU over Kansas and North Carolina.
Lottery pressure on Sacramento and Indiana
The small-market discussion has only sharpened because the Kings and Pacers were mentioned as possible landing spots if they win the lottery. Dybantsa said the attention is already familiar, answering another question by saying, “It already does,” and, “So, it’s not new.”
His résumé also explains why the talk has reached this point. He won gold with Team USA at the 2023 FIBA Under-16 Americas Championship in Mexico, added another FIBA gold with the Under-17 squad in Turkey in 2024, and won again with the Under-19 team last July in Switzerland.
Sunday’s lottery will narrow the field around the player expected to go first in 2026. For the teams sitting in the small-market conversation, Dybantsa’s comments remove one variable: market size is not the hurdle.
