AJ Dybantsa, a player who is considered not just the No. 1 basketball recruit in the country, but also the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA draft, signing with BYU is a national story that has spun across air and land like an arced Wilson aimed and released from deep toward the hoop.
Spin it did.
It was big news that was carried across sports networks and papers and platforms here, there, everywhere. BYU was carried right alongside.
So, there are questions and considerations to bat around with that signing, what it means for Dybantsa and what it means for BYU and what it means for college sports.
Those begin with the price tag.
Guesses have ranged from $5 million to $7 million paid out for the services of a teenager who is all but certain to stay with the Cougars and coach Kevin Young for just one season. With the NBA beckoning, turning an ankle and batting its eyes with a come hither look, Dybantsa is a short-term basketball solution for BYU. He’s a fantastic solution because he really is thaaaaaat good, a kid who can score the ball by creating his own shots and do so many of the other things at the hands of a 6-9 talent with a 7-foot wingspan, a kid who has been compared to … oh, I dunno … players like Tracy McGrady and Jayson Tatum.
He will not just help BYU win games the season after this one, he’ll also bring with him millions of eyeballs. Wait and see, some of the best basketball programs anywhere will want to schedule the Cougars in 2025-26 so they have a chance to match up against Dybantsa.
In that sense, he’s worth the money he’s being paid for the combo-pack of production and publicity. People already are talking about BYU basketball in a way the Cougars are rarely talked about, and they will be focused on by networks and opponents and viewers and fans in a manner that comes along only once or twice in a Jimmer-moon.
What comes with that potential production and pub are some blessings and battles in BYU’s path moving forward. An upside is that recruits and transfers will be eager to play alongside Dybantsa for two reasons — first, he’s a generational talent, and second, he’ll have NBA scouts following him at every game. And when NBA scouts are dialed in on him, they’ll also take note of the talent (or lack thereof) surrounding him. That’s a bonus. Hey, look at me over here! I got game, too!
The attendant question is, how much more NIL money is available to hand out to gifted players who are interested in joining up with the Cougars? And while we’re on that subject, how will teammates who are getting $50,000 to play at BYU feel about busting their humps alongside a guy who’s making multiple millions? Will this comparison, spoken or not, breed camaraderie on the team or contempt?
Another question: Can Young make the now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t blur of new recruits work at BYU. John Calipari used that methodology at Kentucky when he was there. Other coaches have made the same attempt. Continuity remains important in the college game, so regardless of stars that come and go, there must also be rocksteady players who can be counted on to add glue to hold everything together.
A broader thought is this: When a college kid is getting this kind of money, is that a good thing for the college game on the whole or is it bad? From a standpoint of competition, it’s a positive. Chances are slim that Dybantsa would have ended up at BYU, instead of Alabama or North Carolina or Kansas, if NIL wasn’t a part of the equation. Sure, Dybantsa said Young and his staff’s NBA experience was huge in his decision to come to Provo, because his goal is to ascend to that lofty level. But the money was huge, too.
As much as purists complain about this new era of NIL spoils in the college game, it can do a good thing, as well — level the recruiting process because there are only a handful of national blue-blood programs, but there are more motivated mega-rich boosters, billionaires and others, who can help build up programs they favor by luring in the needed talent.
That’s exactly one of the reasons it was cool to see a kid-star like Dybantsa choose a destination like BYU — because it’s not North Carolina or Kansas or Duke or UConn. It’s freaking BYU. That makes watching him and his development and his team there that much more intriguing. It wouldn’t have had to be BYU, it could have been Northwest Presbyterian State or Cal Baptist, and that kind of out-of-the-norm move makes it compelling.
Speaking of religious schools, it will also be interesting to see how Dybantsa handles himself at BYU, where the Honor Code rules the day even more than basketball or football does. He seems like a driven, disciplined young man concentrating more on mastering the proper form on a midrange jumper, the proper way of finding space on the floor than on side activities, distractions, that could get him in trouble. Some guys can handle the required discipline, some cannot.
Also, what will Dybantsa’s arrival mean for the future of BYU basketball? Is he a mere one-and-done, blowing-in-the-wind sort of player, a Ben Simmons type who will be vapor when he leaves the Marriott Center, or will his presence have a lasting impact, long after he moves on to whatever NBA franchise is bad/lucky enough to have earned him in the lottery? Will future prospects want to play for the Cougars because Dybantsa did?
And what effect will Dybantsa’s participation for a school in the Big 12 have on the league as a whole? The conference already is respected as the nation’s best, but will in-league games and matchups against Kansas and a 2025 prospect such as guard Darryn Peterson become national sports events, adding to the drama?l
One final thought: If Dybantsa is getting the attention and the money he’s getting, where does the NIL effect go from here, not just in basketball, but in football, too. And other, less lucrative sports? Revenue sharing might be on the horizon, but where do the payouts end? What kind of corporate partnership is hanging around?
Yeah, welcome, then, to BYU, AJ. There are as many questions to be answered as there are points to score. And in the case of Dybantsa, that total, at this point, is out there, somewhere, floating in the ionosphere.
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