{"id":462707,"date":"2025-12-09T11:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T11:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/462707\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T11:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T11:42:12","slug":"2026-nba-draft-the-case-for-byus-aj-dybantsa-at-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/462707\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NBA Draft: The case for BYU&#8217;s AJ Dybantsa at No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Nets are happy with their first lottery pick in 15 years, rookie Egor D\u00ebmin from BYU.<\/p>\n<p>They would be downright ecstatic to pair him with his BYU successor, AJ Dybantsa.<\/p>\n<p>In a rebuilding season with dual purpose \u2014 developing their record rookie class <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/07\/sports\/nets-playing-like-different-team-with-encouraging-signs-showing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">while tanking<\/a> to add another foundational piece in June \u2014 the Nets\u2019 future will be largely determined by their luck in the upcoming draft lottery.<\/p>\n<p>In what scouts and executives are calling a generational class, Dybantsa <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/18\/sports\/2026-nba-drafts-big-3-make-nets-tanking-stakes-clear\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">is one of three elite prospects<\/a> \u2014 along with Duke big man Cameron Boozer and Kansas guard Darryn Peterson \u2014 who clearly have separated themselves atop the rankings as potential franchise-changing players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nets are happy with their first lottery pick in 15 years, rookie Egor D\u00ebmin from BYU. They&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,227,3822,6,12,249,671,3823,66,196],"class_list":{"0":"post-462707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-egor-demin","13":"tag-inside-the-nets","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-draft","16":"tag-nba-draft-lottery","17":"tag-nets","18":"tag-post-sports-newsletters","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115689432312318523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}