Inside AJ Dybantsa’s rise to basketball stardom, his father’s influence and his decision to go to BYU

Provo • AJ Dybantsa was applying for a spot at St. Sebastian’s School, a private, all-boys Catholic school in the Boston suburbs, as an eighth grader in 2021. An uncomfortable setting for a 14-year-old. Suit, tie. Stuffy. It was typical go-through-the-motions stuff. Just don’t say anything crazy and you’re in. Dybantsa answered the director of admissions’ questions satisfactorily, but in a moment of silence, he flipped the script.

“What’s the school’s mission?”

The administrator, stumped, chuckled, but he was at a loss for words.

“Always inquisitive,” Dybantsa’s mom, Chelsea, said. “Always alert.”

Since then, Dybantsa has grown into one of the best basketball prospects of the last decade, a 6-foot-9 highlight waiting to happen with guard skills and a sprinter’s twitch. His first three games at BYU have put all that on display, as he’s averaged 18.7 points and seven rebounds for a No. 7 Cougars team with national championship aspirations.

Dybantsa is projected to be one of the top three picks in the 2026 NBA Draft, largely because of those physical skills. But as his BYU coaches have come to learn, he also possesses an intellectual curiosity that sets him apart.

The consensus in the basketball community is that Dybantsa is at BYU because of money. The Salt Lake City region has become a tech hub and is home to several billionaires. BYU is funded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, Inc., has stock holdings valued at more than $58.4 billion. The asking price for Dybantsa was somewhere in the range of $3.5-5 million, according to sources from teams that recruited Dybantsa. BYU met the price, but Dybantsa insists, “They didn’t even offer the most money.”

What BYU did offer was the closest extension to the NBA. Dybantsa had never even heard of BYU when his father mentioned the school as a possibility in the spring of 2024; Ace Dybantsa was intrigued by new coach Kevin Young, who was hired away from the Phoenix Suns and left a job as the highest-paid assistant coach in the NBA. More pertinent to Dybantsa, Young had coached Kevin Durant, his favorite player, and could serve as a sounding board for any questions Dybantsa had about the league.

A recent moment presented the perfect setting for why Dybantsa, a Catholic originally from Boston, ended up at the Latter-day Saint school in Utah.

Young and Dybantsa sat courtside at the Phoenix Suns-Utah Jazz game in Salt Lake City in late October. Young served as the game’s narrator. The Suns were without two of their best scorers, and the Jazz’s game plan was to make star Devin Booker play in a crowd all night. Three days prior, BYU had sort of played in mud in a 78-76 exhibition win against North Carolina, and Young had been emphasizing point-five basketball, an old San Antonio Spurs concept that teaches players to make a decision — pass, dribble or shoot — in half a second.

A 50-minute drive away, Young was able to show proof of concept.

“Book played in point-five the whole game,” Young said.

Dybantsa peppered Young with questions all night. He’d been obsessed with speeding up his processing after he hadn’t played to his standard in BYU’s blue-white scrimmage. He visited the coaches’ office the next morning and found assistant Chris Burgess going over the film. Dybantsa peeked his head in. “What did you see?”

Burgess invited him to sit down as he clipped the tape, pointing out to Dybantsa his shift reads, which is the reaction to the defense’s shift when the ball is swung.

“He’s constantly in learner’s mode,” Burgess said. “When you’re in that learner’s-mode mindset, you’re not worried about what anyone thinks. You’re not embarrassed. It’s not fear-based. You’re constantly like, how can I get better? Man, not many kids are like that, right? You’re potentially a top two, three pick and all you care about right now is the blue-white (scrimmage) and getting better. That’s how he is all the time. Forget about his game. His mindset is elite.”

“I just want to know what’s going on,” Dybantsa said. “That’s how I grew up.”

Acinet “Ace” Dybantsa speaks quickly and confidently, a man with a story he crafted for years in his head and is excited to tell. Ace was born in the Republic of Congo and moved to Grigny, France, at 13 to get a better education. He immigrated to the Boston area in 1989 with the goal to learn English and return to France, where his job prospects would improve once he was bilingual. He enrolled at Massasoit Community College in Brockton, Mass., and a friend of his introduced him to the soccer coach. He ended up on a soccer scholarship playing goalie, which paid for his school.

Ace always supported himself — his first job in the U.S. was flipping burgers at a McDonald’s — and he had plans to continue his soccer career at Coastal Carolina studying architecture, but when he found out not all of his credits would transfer, he decided to keep working instead.

Ace met Chelsea, originally from Jamaica, in a gym parking lot. She was looking for a parking spot. He asked if she needed help, then kept coming back until he saw her again. Eventually, they’d get married. Chelsea had never been into sports, but that’s how Ace spent every weekend — watching games. Somewhere along the way, he started playing pickup basketball.

“I was the king of elbows,” he said.

And when the two had their second child, a boy they’d name Acinet Jr., or AJ, the doctor told them, “This is gonna be a tall kid.”

“As soon as I heard that, basketball, basketball,” Ace said. “That’s all that was on my mind.”

There was just one problem; AJ would rather play with his sisters and Spider-Man.

“He was in love with Spider-Man,” Ace said. “Everything Spider-Man, from head to toe.”

Ace gave up on pushing basketball, but he still had the power to start AJ on the path of getting stronger. At 4 years old, AJ had to do 100 push-ups, in increments of 10, every morning, and 100 more at night.

Once, when Ace inquired if AJ had done the push-ups and AJ admitted he hadn’t, Ace said he already knew. He’d set up cameras in the kitchen. When AJ wouldn’t do his chores or did “some dumb stuff,” the push-ups increased to 150, then 200.

In 2012, when AJ was 5, the Dybantsas bought a new home in Brockton. Ace went shopping at K-Mart, and there it was, the remedy to his basketball problem: A Spider-Man basketball hoop that hung on a bedroom door.

“I looked up in the sky. I said thank you Jesus,” Ace said. “I brought it home, and all he saw was Spider-Man. So he followed me to his room, I helped him put it together, and I gave him the little mush ball, and I said, ‘AJ, you can shoot from your bed.’ The rest is history.”

This is Ace Dybantsa. Storyteller. Entertainer. Comedian. (On BYU’s Honor Code — no sex, coffee, beard or swearing — he said he asked AJ if he could handle a year without getting “jiggy.”) He almost always becomes the main character of his son’s story because he’s so charismatic, but those who have been part of the journey tell the story of a man who raised his son to be driven and accountable.

AJ was clearly gifted in his elementary years, but not overly competitive. In seventh grade, he played in a Made Hoops event and his team went 0-10.

“I was just playing for fun,” AJ said. “I didn’t care if I lost.”

That changed during the pandemic. It was hard to find anywhere to play basketball because gyms were closed, and many parks had taken the rims down to keep kids from congregating. Joe Saunders, AJ’s coach at the time with Expressions Elite’s middle school program, found a court on a Navy base in Newport, R.I., about a 50-mile drive south of the Dybantsa’s home in Brockton. Ace drove 13-year-old AJ almost every day. Saunders had players ranging from seventh through 10th grades, and he had a younger court and an older court. Ace told him to put AJ with the older kids and match him up against 16-year-old Martinie Kamga, who was 6-foot-6, 217 pounds.

“He literally would beat the s— out of AJ every day,” Saunders said.

AJ shied away from the hard stuff, like rebounding. “You’re watching,” Saunders would shout. Eventually, he stuck his nose in and started rebounding. Losers had to crab walk or push shirts on the floor until it was time to get back on the court.

“He didn’t want to do that,” Saunders said. “So he willed himself to win.”

Eventually, Saunders earned Ace’s trust and he sometimes left AJ in Newport with Saunders. Saunders had 15-20 boys at a time staying with him and his girlfriend. They worked out four times a day, then at night, Saunders had them outside in the street doing strength and conditioning workouts — dips, push-ups, toe raises. When the boys went back in the house exhausted, AJ would end up in the living room with Saunders, watching old YouTube clips of some of his favorite players.

“That’s when I started being a film addict,” AJ said.

In the summer of 2020, Dybantsa grew 5 inches — from 5-foot-10 to 6-3 — and a year later, as a repeat eighth grader, he made the varsity at St. Sebastian’s. In his fourth game, he went off for 31 points and made 16-of-16 free throws.

“I was, like, well, I can actually do something with this basketball,” he said. “And I just started loving the game.”

Dybantsa averaged 20 points per game as an eighth grader, then returned the next season with hype, already labeled as the best player nationally in his class.

When AJ went to St. Sebastian’s, Ace told coach Dave Hinman his job was to coach AJ and he’d stay out of the way, but he expected Hinman to make AJ a better person and not just a better player.

“Ace never came to me questioning X’s and O’s or the rotation or so many of those things that you do hear from parents,” Hinman said.

But he did hear from him twice.

At the start of AJ’s freshman season, St. Sebastian’s hosted a round-robin scrimmage with two other schools. On the morning of the scrimmage, he got a text message from Ace, informing him AJ would not be at the scrimmage. Hinman called to make sure everything was OK, and Ace informed him that AJ had posted something on social media he shouldn’t have, and as punishment, Ace took his phone and told him he was banned from social media. AJ found an alternative means to get online.

“So now I’m going to take away what he cares about most,” Ace told Hinman, “and that’s basketball and pulling him in the scrimmages today.”

Later that season, AJ hadn’t handled an official’s call in a game, sulking and dropping his head. Hinman said he spoke to him but kept him in the game. The next day, Ace called, telling Hinman he should have benched AJ for the rest of the game for his response.

“Now, how often,” Hinman said, “do coaches hear from parents that you should have benched their kid?”

That season would be the final one AJ hasn’t been paid to play basketball.

Since then, AJ has been on a rocket with the NBA as the expected destination. After winning Massachusetts Boys’ Basketball Gatorade Player of the Year honors as a freshman, he led the Nike EYBL circuit in scoring at 25.8 points per game that spring and summer, playing up in the under-17 division as a 16-year-old. He’s worked out with the likes of Durant, Chris Paul and Jayson Tatum. He spent his sophomore year at Prolific Prep in Napa, Calif., with Ace convinced he needed to face tougher competition against a national schedule.

Last year, he transferred to Utah Prep, which was functioning as a startup, essentially, because Ace told his son he’s probably going to be the No. 1 pick, which means he’s going to go to a bad team and have to do a lot. He was convinced Utah Prep would be a good training ground for that scenario, and according to The Salt Lake Tribune, the fledgling program offered $600,000 and an ownership stake for Ace. Plus, AJ was able to join forces with his friend JJ Mandaquit, a point guard he met playing for USA Basketball.

At Prolific Prep, he lived with a host family, and Chelsea, initially hesitant about the idea, signed off once she met them. But when AJ moved to Hurricane, Utah, and was going to live in a dorm, Chelsea told Ace he was moving with him.

“I retired July 31, 2024,” Ace said, “to be a full-time dad.”

It’s a Tuesday in late October, and AJ is hanging out in the bullpen of the BYU coaches’ office. He’s chopping it up with several graduate assistants taking a break from working at their computers after practice. He’s trying to convince them that box jumps are what gave him his bounce. He started when he was 10. Eventually, he worked his way up to a 30-inch box.

“So you’re telling me just a couple of months, and I’m going to have a 40-inch vertical?” one of the GAs says. (It’s 40.5 inches, by the way.)

Ace jokes that maybe Chelsea is related to Usain Bolt, but AJ is convinced this isn’t all just genetics. He’s been around enough pros to know the special ones put in the extra work. At 6:30 a.m. daily, he meets assistant coach John Linehan for a 35-minute workout. Usually shooting. He regularly meets with assistant coach Brandon Dunson to watch tape to go over his body language.

“He’s very attentive to make sure that his teammates know that he’s there for them,” Dunson said. “He’s fighting for them.”

Last year, Young noticed that AJ celebrated with hand signals, as young players tend to do, and he planned to scrap that.

“Because no great players do that,” Young said, “but he left that in high school.”

AJ reminds Young of Booker, who he bonded with in Phoenix over “nerdy, basketball IQ type stuff.”

Burgess, who was in the same freshman class as Shane Battier at Duke, said Battier was the most curious player he’d ever been around. “Almost to the point where it was annoying,” Burgess said, “It’s like, Shane, just play.”

Burgess said there’s a reason Battier lasted 13 years in the NBA.

“AJ is so intellectually curious,” Burgess said. “On that level, if not maybe even more.”

BYU senior Richie Saunders, an All-Big 12 performer last season, said he had some concerns with how willing a player with the credentials of AJ would be to play team basketball. That quickly dissipated when AJ started asking him questions, trying to get a feel for BYU’s system.

“He has this ability to take information and apply it,” Saunders said. “I was really, really impressed by that, especially as an 18-year-old who’s kind of been told, you’re the best, you’re the best, but he still has the ability, or the desire, to get better and to listen and improve.”

At Tuesday’s practice, AJ arrives and walks over to a weight sled and pushes it from one side of the floor to the other. After practice, he does a pool recovery workout. Young said he has to make sure he doesn’t do too much.

During practice, AJ is playing point-five basketball. He’s decisive on every catch. Once, he catches the ball on the left wing, fakes a pass to the corner and is at the rim in what feels like half a second. He dominates the day with his scoring, his buckets all coming at the rim or in the short mid-range area.

That’s what makes him so hard to guard. Take away the rim, and he can get to within 10-15 feet, rise up and shoot. Akash Sebastian, BYU’s director of analytics and strategy, who came with Young from the Suns, tracks all of his touches and his efficiency. He says the mid-range is a bad shot for most players; AJ, similar to Durant and Booker, is the exception.

Two days later, after an off day, AJ controls the game with his passing. He throws several dimes with his left hand, which his father used to insist he spend hours working on, telling him he’d understand one day. Almost every time he makes the proper shift read.

“Now it’s the point where I’m like, hey, you’ve still got another dribble in you,” Burgess said. “You’re getting rid of it too early.”

Through three games, AJ is second on the Cougars in assists.

A successful season is a Big 12 championship and a national championship, AJ said. Then the expectation is he’s off to the NBA, likely one of the first picks.

“I don’t know that,” AJ said of the expected one-and-done path, getting push back that, come on, everyone knows that’s where he’s headed. “They can assume.”

Ace will say that’s the plan. The entire family moved to Provo this year. Ace got AJ an apartment because he felt like it was time for him to be his own. Next year AJ wants the family to move with him wherever he’s drafted so they can live together. Ace tells him he needs to get himself a $2 million home and then an in-laws suite next door for the rest of the family.

At BYU, he’s taking in-person classes — mission prep, university 101 and music. His mom checks in regularly to make sure he’s getting his schoolwork done.

“You know I’m locked in,” AJ tells her.

He sits at the front of the class, pays attention, and turns in his work on time. Former BYU star Jimmer Fredette told him once Jimmer Mania started, he had to switch to online classes second semester. So AJ is trying to enjoy the college experience while he can. He attended BYU’s win over Utah in football, but he didn’t rush the field.

After he’s finished with his day’s obligations, he’s shown a back way out of the practice facility to avoid the crowds of trick-or-treaters lined up outside the Marriott Center. He plans to return later to hand out candy, but for now, he wants to get back to his apartment. He’s called an Uber, because he’s yet to get his driver’s license. Sometimes he gets a ride from point guard Rob Wright III, who recently let him drive his jeep from his apartment to AJ’s.

“He’s stiff,” Wright said of his driving.

There’s an innocence to AJ on the practice floor and back in the coaches’ office with the GAs. It’s in these settings where he seems at ease. Guard down. No pressure to be AJ Dybantsa, the future NBA superstar.

Hinman, his former high school coach, watches from a distance. He saw the Holy Cross game on Saturday night. It reminded him of AJ’s days at St. Sebastian’s. AJ sat the final eight minutes, but he didn’t exactly sit. He was up, cheering for his teammates’ successes.

“He’s a super competitive, highly skilled, motivated kid,” Hinman said, “who cares deeply about the people he plays with.”

Hinman has one more story to tell. Last November, AJ was in town to play a game in Boston, where he returned on Saturday to face No. 3 UConn. He surprised Hinman with a visit, popping his head into his classroom. Hinman asked him, “What do you want to do?”

AJ told him he wanted to say hello to every teacher he had in his two years there and thank them. As they walked the halls, AJ saw old classmates — some who were two grades behind him — and stopped to visit, remembering their names.

Hinman thought they’d seen everyone, but AJ stopped him, reminding him there was one religion teacher he’d yet to visit.

“Honestly, if he’d said, that’s okay, we saw most of them, I wouldn’t have blinked,” Hinman said, “because this guy is not someone you’d expect AJ to be close with.”

AJ and Hinman went to find Mr. Lewin, so AJ could thank him.

Mission complete.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.