NBA News NBA News, Match Reports and Updates
AJ Dybantsa garnered plenty of attention during his lone college campaign at BYU, and it’s only intensified in the days since the NBA draft lottery.
All eyes are on the potential No. 1 overall pick. Every word Dybantsa says is being carefully dissected; every facial expression he makes brings widespread interpretation. Some think he’s content to land in Washington, while others believe he’d prefer to remain in Utah. There’s no shortage of speculation.
Advertisement
And with speculation comes scrutiny.
A video was posted to X on Tuesday showing Dybantsa missing his first four 3-point attempts during a shooting drill at the NBA Combine in Chicago. The original video, which has since been deleted, quickly went viral, spurring jokes and criticism toward Dybantsa all across social media.
One popular response to the video, tongue-in-cheek or otherwise, was that Dybantsa had tanked the drill on purpose in order to avoid the Wizards and fall to the Jazz at No. 2.
It should go without saying that such a far-fetched conspiracy shouldn’t fool anyone. No one would ever advise a top prospect to deliberately hurt his own draft stock, and from what this writer has observed over the past year, Dybantsa — who has publicly shared his desire to be the No. 1 pick — is too competitive to take his foot off the gas pedal.
Advertisement
Besides, Dybantsa ultimately recovered from the four initial misses to finish 8 of 15 from behind the arc in that specific drill. In another video, he was seen draining 7 of 11 3-pointers. Clearly the effort was there.
And even if his results had been truly putrid, a single performance likely wouldn’t have done any lasting damage for Dybantsa.
“Everyone can have a bad day,” a Western Conference executive told the Deseret News’ Sarah Todd. “(The Combine is) a new place, an unfamiliar gym. I’m not judging anyone on what happens here. I have a whole body of work to look at.”
The viral drill video alone shouldn’t affect anyone’s opinion of…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/aj-dybantsa-3-point-shooting-030001526.html
Author :
Publish date : 2026-05-16 03:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
