A few weeks removed from hearing his name called first overall by the Washington Wizards, AJ Dybantsa got his first taste of actual NBA basketball in Las Vegas Summer League against the Utah Jazz. It's a preseason-adjacent exhibition that means nothing in the standings, but for a guy who just spent one season torching college defenses at BYU, it's the first real checkpoint on the road to whatever he becomes at the next level.
The literal moment: a Wizards player in white drives and finishes with Utah up 2-0 in the first quarter.
That's the bucket everyone's talking about. Doesn't matter that it came in a July exhibition game that half the country will forget by August — Dybantsa was the consensus top prospect in his class for years, he led Division I in scoring this past season at BYU, and he's the first player to do that and go No. 1 overall since Glenn Robinson back in 1994. Every made shot from here on out is going to get treated like a landmark, at least until the regular season actually starts.
Barstool's basketball degenerates were not going to let a first pro basket go by quietly. The reactions escalated fast, from cute to full-blown hyperbole, because that's just how Twitter treats a hyped rookie's debut.
The hype train went completely off the rails after the bucket went in.
Obviously nobody thinks a Summer League layup in a 13-25 first quarter makes anyone the greatest player in NBA history — it's a joke, and a good one, riffing on just how much pressure and projection is already stacked on a guy who hasn't played a single real NBA minute yet. That's the deal with a No. 1 pick who arrives with this much pedigree: every jump shot gets the full treatment, ironic or not.
The funniest layer of the whole thing came from Clem, who revealed his kid AJ wanted to fall asleep watching Summer League — sports-sicko behavior that got the perfect follow-up when it turned out the kid was tuning in specifically to watch a player who shares his name make his pro debut for Washington.
@TheClemReport AJ wanted to watch AJ. Raising a Wizards fan, couldn’t be happier for the Clem family
None of this changes the fact that Summer League is Summer League — small sample, watered-down rosters, no real stakes. But for a franchise that just landed a generational-hype prospect with the top pick, watching him get on the board for the first time as a pro is exactly the kind of moment fans and bloggers alike are going to milk for everything it's worth. The real evaluation starts in October. For now, Washington and everyone paying attention just wanted to see the ball go through the hoop.