On June 23, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, one name should be called first at the 2026 NBA Draft: AJ Dybantsa. At 19, the BYU wing is projected as the No. 1 pick, headed for Washington. But behind the American phenom lies a deeply French story, built on back-and-forth trips between two continents, a father who came from Congo-Brazzaville by way of France, and a town in the Essonne that will watch one of its own walk into legend tonight.
An undisputed favorite
Anicet Junior Dybantsa, known as “AJ,” did not reach the top of this class by chance. A two-time world champion with Team USA at the U17 (2024) and U19 (2025) levels, and MVP of the last U19 World Cup, he is coming off a dazzling freshman season at Brigham Young University in Utah, where he finished as the leading scorer in all of college basketball with more than 25 points per game. Standing 6’9″, the wing checks every box of a generational prospect: tall, spectacular, skilled, able to dunk and to pull up from three.
His read on himself is crystal clear. “I’m versatile, complete, I play the right way, I win,” he tells BeBasket, without false modesty. Three years after Victor Wembanyama, it is his turn to live this honor. The only unknown is a possible move by the Utah Jazz to grab the top pick. Otherwise, it is off to the nation’s capital, where he would join Frenchmen Bilal Coulibaly and Alexandre Sarr, as well as Trae Young and Anthony Davis.
The French thread
What sets one of the brightest hopes in world basketball apart is that part of his roots is planted in France. His father, Anicet “Ace” Dybantsa, is Congolese, his mother is Jamaican. And before settling in the United States, Ace spent eight years in France.
After arriving in France in 1980, he moved from town to town: Tours, Compiègne, Épinal, and above all Grigny, in the Essonne, where he stayed the longest. “I kept getting kicked out left and right, school back then was rough,” he laughs today to BeBasket, in French, his native language.
From that nomadic youth across three continents, the father drew a philosophy he passed on to his children. “I try to take the good things from each continent and instill them in my kids. Europe and France taught us hard work, respect for elders and helping your neighbor,” he tells BeBasket. A transmission that remains essential in his eyes. “It’s essential that he knows where he comes from. Dybantsa is his name, but it’s also mine and my father’s,” he explains to Le Parisien.
This French chapter is no token gesture. AJ has come to the country more than a dozen times. His first visit was in 2018, in Trappes, at his cousins’ home, where he spent a full month with his sisters over the summer. He loved it so much that he wanted to come back the following year. Although he does not speak French, he understands it from all his trips across the Atlantic. “I’ve come plenty of times and I feel like I’ve already been everywhere in France. I kind of love everything about your country: the culture, the museums, the food,” he tells Le Parisien, like a true tourist.
The school of a father’s discipline
Behind the raw talent stands an uncompromising mentor. A former police officer at Boston University, Ace Dybantsa applied an iron method to channel his son. The most striking story goes back to AJ’s childhood, when the boy announced he wanted to become a professional basketball player. The father’s answer was blunt. “Stop dreaming, there are more doctors and lawyers than NBA players in this world,” he told him, as he recounts to BeBasket. But faced with the kid’s persistence, he set one non-negotiable condition: no grade below an A or a B, the American system. Otherwise, it was over.
The threat was not idle. The day AJ came home with a bad grade, his father called his coach before a tournament in Philadelphia: he would make the trip, but he would not play. Several hours of driving each way, the bench all weekend, and then home. “On the way back, I asked him: Did you learn the lesson? From that day on, he never had anything below a B until college,” Ace smiles to BeBasket. The discipline reached all the way into the family living room, where a camera made sure AJ and his two sisters completed their hundred daily push-ups.
The player does not disown that rigor. “That’s how I raised my children, with respect for hard work,” the father sums up to Le Parisien.
The lockdown turning point
If AJ is the athletic monster he is today, compared by scouts to “Jaylen Brown with more bounce,” it all came together during Covid. With the world at a standstill, Ace set up a hoop and plyo boxes in the family backyard in Brockton, the hometown of Rocky Marciano, to work on his son’s vertical. “That’s when I saw he had a chance. He was training two or three times a day,” he remembers to BeBasket.
In a single summer, AJ grew more than four inches in three months. “When he came out of lockdown, people didn’t recognize him,” his father laughs. It was around then, at 14 or 15, that the kid realized he was no longer simply good but maybe the best of his generation, when he saw his name sitting at the top of the ESPN rankings.
Spider-Man, then basketball
It all started, though, with a misunderstanding. AJ’s destiny shifted at age 5, because of Spider-Man, his favorite character. To please his son, Ace gave him a small basketball hoop bearing the Marvel hero’s image. AJ quickly traded the spider for the net. “The rest belongs to history,” the father smiles to Le Parisien.
Today the young man lives literally for basketball, unable to sit through an episode of a series without falling asleep. He has tried golf, fishing, even boxing, but nothing sticks: his only true passion remains working on his shot, which he himself calls his “biggest weakness.” Alongside that, he has launched his foundation to offer scholarships in Africa, notably in Congo and Jamaica.
In Kevin Durant’s ear
At this level of hype, AJ does not lack mentors. He is promised a Kevin Durant-style future, his favorite player, whose frame and spectacular game he evokes. The connection is very real. “KD calls me regularly. The most valuable advice he’s ever given me is to always play simple and never overdo it. It’s the best advice,” AJ tells Le Parisien.
His father agrees and measures the road traveled. “LeBron James, Stephen Curry and many others follow him on social media and give him their opinions too. My son is already in the big world,” he says to Le Parisien. To handle that constant exposure, AJ has built himself a simple method. “Post and disappear,” he sums up to BeBasket. “Everyone has an opinion. I know what I’m doing and what I’m capable of. I ignore the bad and embrace the good.”
One eye on the French national team
AJ follows the rise of French basketball very closely, and now sees it as serious competition. “France develops a lot of good athletes. They finished second at the last Olympics,” he notes to BeBasket. Faced with the Wembanyama phenomenon, he makes no secret of his admiration. “He’s 7’4″ and he does what he does, it’s impressive,” he says to the same outlet, keeping a close watch as well on the progress of Alex Sarr and Zaccharie Risacher.
And recent history already gives him the edge. Last summer in Lausanne, crowned world champion and MVP of the U19 World Cup, he crossed paths with the young French side in the first round and did not need to force his talent to prevail, under the eyes of his father, who was in Switzerland. Next stop he is hoping for: the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, with Team USA. The transatlantic date is already set.
A European tour before the big night
In the days leading up to the draft, AJ Dybantsa did not travel like an ordinary prospect. Bodyguard, minivan with tinted windows, communications team: the young man made one appearance after another across the Old Continent. He was spotted in Budapest for the Champions League final won by PSG, then in the front row at the Adidas Arena, a Paris jersey on his back, for a Paris Basketball vs. Cholet game. A Michael Olise fan, he made a detour to Roland-Garros before heading to Nantes for France vs. Ivory Coast, then flying off to New York for the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden.
A San Antonio supporter, he even managed to slip into a Victor Wembanyama press scrum to ask him a question before Game 4. One of his close friends happens to be Dylan Harper, Wemby’s lieutenant with the Spurs. But AJ’s heart spoke during the Finals. “I’m from Boston. New York is our number one rival. I didn’t want them to win,” he tells Le Parisien, with a smile worn down by the end of an exhausting trip.
The highlight of that Paris stay? The hunt for the suit he will wear tonight to shake Adam Silver’s hand. Between two training sessions at 6 a.m. in a Paris gym, the young man went shopping. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. I’m not stressed, just very excited and calm,” he says to Le Parisien.
A life that changes tonight
In Brooklyn, AJ Dybantsa runs his own affairs without a middleman: no traditional agent, but his father at the helm, surrounded by a marketing team. A rarity at the very top of basketball. And when his name is called, it is Ace and his grandfather who will walk up on stage with him. “Where we come from, in Africa, transmission is important,” the father reminds Le Parisien.
What remains is a father who knows everything will change in a second. “Our life, his life will change the second his name is called. For my part, I’ve done my job as a father. It’s up to him now to fly on his own wings. But like any good dad, I’ll always be there for him too,” Anicet Dybantsa confides to Le Parisien.
Tonight, a 19-year-old American should become the first pick of the NBA Draft. But somewhere between Tours, Compiègne, Épinal, Trappes and Grigny, a part of France will watch one of its own enter history. As AJ himself puts it to BeBasket: “The work starts again, simple as that.”
