AJ Dybantsa is starting his sophomore year of high school, but that age hasn’t prevented him from working out with some of the modern greats of the NBA. According to Adam Zagoria, the 6-foot-8 wing has worked out with LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul in recent days.
Dybantsa, who ESPN ranks as the No. 1 player in the class of 2026, was shown doing a post workout led by James in the video tweeted by Zagoria for the New York Times on July 27. In the clip, LeBron walks the athletes through backing down, spinning into position along the baseline, and pulling up for a midrange look.
After working out with Durant, Dybantsa told Zagoria that the Phoenix Suns star — who is Dybantsa’s favorite player — gave him advice.
“Stay focused, make the game easier than what it is,”Dybantsa said. “We’re taller than everybody so don’t need to do all that extra dribbling, just one or two dribbles and get to your spot.”
He appears to have had multiple workouts with Paul, a future Hall of Famer who is now on the Golden State Warriors.
“We’ve been in contact,” Dybantsa said. “They’ve been in contact with my dad, him and the assistants.”
Dybantsa was very close with the late Terrence Clarke and Clarke spoke highly of Calipari and Kentucky to Dybantsa.
“Through him, I know they’re hard-working and play free, especially with the wings,” he said of his conversations with Clarke.
Dybantsa is also used to playing with a lot of elite talent at Prolific Prep so the transition to practice at Kentucky wouldn’t be as strange.
“In practice, playing against all of these players every day is getting us better,” he said. “Playing with them is fun because not a lot of teams can stop everybody.”
It will be interesting to see if the Cats emerge as a favorite in this recruitment. You can check out everything he had to say here.
