Exclusive: AJ Dybantsa reveals what changed that made him serious about basketball

After winning the NBA Draft Lottery and having to wait over a month, the Washington Wizards made it official and selected AJ Dybantsa with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. The new Wizards forward will have a chance to develop into a real star playing alongside Trae Young and Anthony Davis.

Dybantsa had an impressive high school tape and freshman season at Brigham Young University, but when did basketball really become a passion for the now 19-year old first overall pick?

Before he was officially picked by the Wizards in Tuesday night’s Draft, Dybantsa spoke exclusively with ClutchPoints about a number of topics, including when he truly found out that basketball was his calling.

“I was five when I got introduced to it, but had a real basketball, probably at like six years old,” Dybantsa told ClutchPoints. “I was just playing like the mini hoop when I was five.

“But I wasn’t like really in love with the game, and that’s why I started to enjoy it. I didn’t really start loving the game probably till like COVID.”

According to Dybantsa, the six-foot-nine forward grew five inches over a single summer, which put him in a different category as a player.

“I kind of just clicked,” added Dybantsa. “I was playing against order guys, getting beat up, driving an hour and thirty to go work out. I was kind of bugging my dad to work out. When I came back, I grew like five inches in like three months and I’m starting to kill people out, played varsity as an eighth grader and I thought, ‘I could probably go somewhere far with this.'”

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AJ Dybantsa’s father, Ace, used to drive his son an hour and a half to Middleton, MA in order to workout

“That’s when I started to realize that if I’m going to drive an hour and 30 minutes for this, I might as well, like, lock in.”

After he was selected, Dybantsa was surprised by his Red Bull family with billboards of him in New York’s Times Square

Red Bull celebrated AJ Dybantsa going No. 1 overall to the Washington Wizards with billboards of him in New York’s Times Square

(: @bellikemike) pic.twitter.com/mJ0S9xBNxe

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) June 25, 2026

Now that the team has come true for AJ Dybantsa, the new Wizards star is ready to go to work and develop even more than he already has.

“It’s exciting because I haven’t even tapped into my full potential yet,” Dybantsa added to ClutchPoints. “Obviously, I hope I’m still growing, still getting stronger, and I’m just not as polished yet. So I mean, it’s going to be fun to see what happens. I don’t know in how many years, probably in like eight years, we’ll see like what it’ll be like.”

Dybantsa is fully expected to suit up for the Wizards’ Summer League team in Las Vegas, where he’ll likely take on guys like Darryn Peterson and the Utah Jazz as well as Cameron Boozer and the Memphis Grizzlies.

The post Exclusive: AJ Dybantsa reveals what changed that made him serious about basketball appeared first on ClutchPoints.