2026 NBA Draft Thread.....

[tontoz]

Arenas might not be in this draft. He was in a bad car accident, then had knee surgery. It's iffy whether he will play at all this season.

[nate33]

Watch on YouTube

Holy crap! He showed the entire package in the second half. The Michael Jordan-esque mid-post game. The driving game. And the pull-up 3's off the bounce. All against an elite defensive team.

The part that impressed me most was at the :45 second mark. He got in an isolation at the post, recognized that no double team was coming so he stayed calm. He got to his spot. He knew he was going to take a turnaround jumper over his left shoulder. His defender knew he was going to take a turnaround jumper over his left shoulder. But AJ knew that there was honestly nothing the defender could do to stop it. He was just a better athlete and would get to a higher release point than the defender could contest. And the guy guarding him, Jaylin Stewart, is a big athletic dude (6'-7" 225 Jr.) and a 4-star recruit out of high school. You gotta love a player with an unstoppable go-to move.

AJ scored just 4 points in the first half and went 1/6 from the floor and 2/4 from the line with 2 turnovers while trying to figure out the defense. In the second half, he scored 21 points, going 7/8 from the floor and 5/6 from the line with only 1 turnover.

[dobrojim]

The guest on Locked On had Dybantsa ahead of Peterson. We need a lead guard but some say, draft for need, end up needing.

[tontoz]

Holy crap! He showed the entire package in the second half. The Michael Jordan-esque mid-post game. The driving game. And the pull-up 3's off the bounce. All against an elite defensive team.

The part that impressed me most was at the :45 second mark. He got in an isolation at the post, recognized that no double team was coming so he stayed calm. He got to his spot. He knew he was going to take a turnaround jumper over his left shoulder. His defender knew he was going to take a turnaround jumper over his left shoulder. But AJ knew that there was honestly nothing the defender could do to stop it. He was just a better athlete and would get to a higher release point than the defender could contest. And the guy guarding him, Jaylin Stewart, is a big athletic dude (6'-7" 225 Jr.) and a 4-star recruit out of high school. You gotta love a player with an unstoppable go-to move.

AJ scored just 4 points in the first half and went 1/6 from the floor and 2/4 from the line with 2 turnovers while trying to figure out the defense. In the second half, he scored 21 points, going 7/8 from the floor and 5/6 from the line with only 1 turnover.

I was talking with a Utah fan on another board that follows BYU. I said at halftime that AJ needed to slow down, that he wasn't going to be able to get to the rim against that defense. AJ literally didn't take a shot the last few minutes of the first half because he was so shook.

Then in the second half he did exactly that, slowing down and reading the defense. Seeing a freshman make an adjustment that big at halftime was surprising.

This was a hometown game for him so he had a lot of family and friends in the stands. He must have felt like crap at halftime.

[DukeLecker]

The guest on Locked On had Dybantsa ahead of Peterson. We need a lead guard but some say, draft for need, end up needing.

Not totally the same, but Hawks needed a guard and took Marvin Williams over Chris Paul because his athletic upside. Those ‘00-‘10 were really good, but always lacked an elite guard. Imagine Joe Johnson, Paul and Horford.

[9 and 20]

All of the top guys look like all stars to me, but that's what I think every year, tbh.

Boozer got some Julius Randle to him, I think. But more motor and more passing.

[nate33]

I really just can't get a read on Boozer until I see him play against guys with NBA size. He is absolutely murdering these undersized opponents, but I don't know if it will translate. Could he be completely negated just by guarding him with NBA size? If he is playing against a team like, say, the Lakers, will he be able to do anything against either Ayton or Rui? Or would he suddenly look pretty ordinary?

He reminds me of Sabonis in that Sabonis consistently feasts on mediocre centers, but he gets shut down every year in the playoffs when he goes up against one of the 12 or so centers in the league who can match up with him.

[tontoz]

The guest on Locked On had Dybantsa ahead of Peterson. We need a lead guard but some say, draft for need, end up needing.

I think AJ would actually be a good fit. He wants to attack the rim, not settle for jumpers, and he is very good at it. The college game doesn't suit him because there is no illegal defense so teams can pack the paint.

Different story in the NBA. We have guys who can shoot 3s and there is the illegal defense rule so it will be much easier to get to the rim. We need someone who can put pressure on the rim. I think Riley can do it fairly well but he isn't on the same level as AJ.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Watch on YouTube

Holy crap! He showed the entire package in the second half. The Michael Jordan-esque mid-post game. The driving game. And the pull-up 3's off the bounce. All against an elite defensive team.

The part that impressed me most was at the :45 second mark. He got in an isolation at the post, recognized that no double team was coming so he stayed calm. He got to his spot. He knew he was going to take a turnaround jumper over his left shoulder. His defender knew he was going to take a turnaround jumper over his left shoulder. But AJ knew that there was honestly nothing the defender could do to stop it. He was just a better athlete and would get to a higher release point than the defender could contest. And the guy guarding him, Jaylin Stewart, is a big athletic dude (6'-7" 225 Jr.) and a 4-star recruit out of high school. You gotta love a player with an unstoppable go-to move.

AJ scored just 4 points in the first half and went 1/6 from the floor and 2/4 from the line with 2 turnovers while trying to figure out the defense. In the second half, he scored 21 points, going 7/8 from the floor and 5/6 from the line with only 1 turnover.

https://www.deseret.com/sports/2025/11/15/byu-basketball-aj-dybansta-uconn-huskies-college-basketball/

Analysis: AJ Dybantsa made the game with UConn possible, then he nearly atoned for BYU’s early sins

BOSTON — Win or lose, Saturday night’s wild game between No. 3 UConn and No. 7 BYU at TD Garden in Boston was always going to be the AJ Dybantsa Game.

Without him, the game wouldn’t have been scheduled. The teams wouldn’t have met unless it was in the NCAA Tournament next spring. And the Cougars never would have run the parquet floor beneath the Boston Celtics’ 17 NBA championship banners 40 minutes from his home in Brockton, Massachusetts.

And win or lose, the game Dybantsa made possible was going to help BYU’s seeding in the NCAA Tournament next spring by boosting its strength of schedule.

It is, after all, the first time a top-10 BYU team played another top-10 opponent since the height of Jimmermania in 2011.

TD Garden had one open date for a college game, an organizer said. BYU and UConn eagerly agreed. So did Fox Sports, which cleared out a college football night for a matchup this juicy, with each team fielding three players listed on ESPN’s Top 100.

The rest confirms what nate already surmissed, but it goes into great detail with quotes from Dan Hurley and AJD. He discusses his mindset. Very cerebral. Uber athletic. Both parents in the front row. High character kid.

Draft this kid above Peterson. He is a Len Bias before the bad choice.