AJ Dybantsa didn’t do a single pre-draft workout for any NBA team before the 2026 draft tomorrow night, and it’s the most calculated power move a prospect has made in this process in decades.
He explained it himself on Baseline Banter, via ClutchPoints: “I didn’t work out for none. I just visited the cities — they take me to the facilities. They take me to dinner. Talk. I don’t have to work out. They know what I can do.” Shams Charania confirmed the formal city visits with Washington and Utah (No. 1 and No. 2 picks), and Dybantsa confirmed the rest: no workouts, not once, for anyone.
https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/2066502245894475809
The entire pre-draft workout machine exists for the benefit of teams. It’s a due-diligence ritual, a box-checking exercise where 19-year-olds run through drills for front offices that have already watched thousands of hours of tape. Prospects show up, they sweat on command, and teams feel like they did their homework. Dybantsa opted out of the whole system.
His BYU tape was the audition. Thirty-five games, 25.5 points per game, tops in all of Division I, on 51% from the field. The Jazz and Wizards know exactly what they’re getting. They flew him to their cities, bought him dinner, and shook his hand. The workout never happened because he didn’t need to convince anyone of anything.
I went back and watched his late-season tape against tournament-level defenses three times to understand the ceiling here. The reads aren’t just good. They’re the kind of reads that make the player next to him better, which is the one thing you genuinely cannot see in a gymnasium drill on a Tuesday morning in June.
The Tim Duncan parallel isn’t a stretch. Duncan threatened to return to Wake Forest, entered the draft, and went No. 1 to San Antonio in 1997. The move sent a message: I’m not auditioning for you. You’re hoping I pick you. Dybantsa accomplished the same thing without even making a threat — he just didn’t show up to the No. 1 pick debate the way everyone expected him to.
Washington is taking him. He told 7News he’s “100% sure” of it. The Wizards have Trae Young’s contract situation to navigate after the draft, which means they need the Dybantsa pick to be a certainty — and it is. Darryn Peterson, by comparison, limited his access too, visiting only Washington, but he still visited. There’s a difference between limiting access and opting out of the system entirely.
The Dybantsa zero workouts story got treated as a curiosity, an unusual draft note tucked between combine measurements and mock draft shuffles. It isn’t a curiosity. It’s a statement about who has leverage in this transaction, and the answer is a 19-year-old who led Division I in scoring and made grown men fly to him for dinner.
Almost every other prospect in this class ran drills for teams. Dybantsa sent them his season stats and waited for the invitation.
