AJ Dybantsa is the No. 1 prospect in the 2026 NBA Draft, and he made the case in a way that nobody could ignore. The BYU freshman led the country with 25.5 points per game and broke Danny Ainge’s 48-year-old freshman scoring record with a 43-point eruption that scouts are still talking about.
Dybantsa entered college as a McDonald’s All-American with massive expectations. He came out as the clear top of the board. ESPN, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report, and Yahoo all have him at No. 1 on their latest big boards. So does basically everyone else who watches college basketball for a living.
The Washington Wizards won the lottery this year, which means they get the first crack at building around the 6-foot-9 wing. Dybantsa to Washington is a fascinating fit. The Wizards have been rebuilding for years and finally landed a foundational piece, and Dybantsa has the size and skill to be the centerpiece of an offense for the next decade.
His game is everything modern NBA scouts want. He can score at all three levels, attack mismatches, defend multiple positions, and create for teammates when defenses collapse on him. The comparison most scouts are throwing around is somewhere between Brandon Ingram and Paul George. That is high praise for a 19-year-old who just finished his freshman year.
The race for the second pick is more interesting. Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer both have legitimate cases to go second to the Utah Jazz. Peterson, the Kansas guard, was the most prolific scorer in college basketball this year outside of Dybantsa. Boozer, who returned to Duke for his sophomore year, played his best basketball during the NCAA Tournament.
Then the rest of the lottery gets interesting fast. Caleb Wilson out of North Carolina, Keaton Wagler from Tennessee, Darius Acuff Jr. out of Arkansas, and Kingston Flemings from Houston are all in the top 10 conversation. This is being called one of the deepest drafts in years, and the post-combine evaluations are still shifting daily.
The Memphis Grizzlies pick third, with the Bulls at four and the Clippers at five. After that, the order gets murkier as teams reshuffle based on combine performance, workouts, and the inevitable last-minute trades.
Combine week was instructive. Cameron Carr put on a show in the 5-on-5 scrimmages, dropping 30 points and seven rebounds on the first day before sitting out Day 2 with his stock secured. Several other prospects helped themselves significantly. A few hurt themselves enough to slip a round.
The 2026 draft is also notable for who is not in it. The college landscape has changed dramatically with NIL money keeping more players in school. A wave of would-be prospects pulled out late and returned to their schools, which means the draft is deeper at the top but thinner in the second round than it has been in recent years.
Dybantsa’s NBA fit will be the storyline through the spring and summer. Washington has young talent already in place, including a recent lottery pick at point guard and a couple of intriguing wings. Pairing them with Dybantsa gives the Wizards a real core to grow with.
The draft is set for June 23 and 24 on ABC and ESPN. By then, Dybantsa will have done his workouts, taken his meetings, and probably picked up a sponsorship or two. The hype machine is already running.
If he hits, Washington gets the cornerstone they have been waiting on for a generation. If he is even close, this is still a transformative pick. The 2026 draft is Dybantsa’s class, and everybody else is fighting for second.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
