AJ Dybantsa could be the first No. 1 pick in NBA Draft from Massachusetts in 41 years
The last time a Massachusetts-born player had his name called at the NBA Draft was five years ago and it was both in memoriam and as inspiration.
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Terrence Clarke was projected to be a first-round pick in 2021 — the first Boston area first-rounder since Nerlens Noel in 2013 — before a fatal car crash in Los Angeles just weeks before the draft. The NBA posthumously honored him as a ceremonial pick.
Clarke became a symbol the heights the modern generation of the area’s basketball players could reach. Five years later, Brockton’s AJ Dybantsa is on the verge of completing the journey.
Dybantsa is at the top of most experts’ lists entering Tuesday’s NBA Draft, and if his name is called first, he’ll join Patrick Ewing in 1985 and Jimmy Walker in 1967 as the only Massachusetts products to be selected No. 1 overall.
What makes Dybantsa different from Ewing and Walker, though, is that he’s the only one of the three who was actually born here. Ewing’s mother moved their family to Cambridge from Jamaica when he was 12. Walker spent most of his childhood in Roxbury after his family moved there from Amherst, Va., when he was an infant.
Dybantsa seemed to understand his position in the time and lineage of Massachusetts basketball even as he navigated a unique path that took him from Massachusetts to California to Utah and now to the NBA.
“The last guy that we had besides Terrence was, like, Patrick Ewing — and that was 40 years ago,” Dybantsa said when his Utah Prep team made a tour stop at Emmanuel College in 2024. “I just want to be a guy that people know where Brockton is on the map. Everybody talks about the New Yorks of the world, the Cali’s of the world. But Mass. got some hoopers.”
If anything, Dybantsa’s path to draft night shows how much the road has changed.
For more than half a century — from 1947, when Springfield native Bob Hubbard was drafted by the Providence Steamrollers to 1999 when Fall River’s Chris Herren was drafted by the Denver Nuggets — the pipeline from Massachusetts to the NBA essentially went through high schools.
Ewing was the type of player that shifted the NBA once he arrived — the league’s television deal with CBS nearly quadrupled in value in 1985 and NBC Sports — but he earned his reputation at Cambridge Rindge and Latin.
Walker was an anomaly in his era.
He was discovered by Celtics legends Sam Jones and Satch Sanders, and Jones guided him to play high school ball at Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina. He thrived there, then returned to New England and became an All-American at Providence, then the Detroit Pistons took him with the No. 1 overall pick in 1967.
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But in the 2000s, the landscape shifted.
Massachusetts became a pipeline for NBA talent — but it wasn’t necessarily churning out players from the area.
Dan Gadzuric came from the Netherlands to Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield to a second-round pick in 2000. Jarrett Jack left his home in Maryland to play at Worcester Academy and became a first-round pick in 2005. Antoine Wright traveled from California to play at Lawrence Academy and became a first-round pick in 2005. Michael Beasley went from Maryland to Notre Dame Prep and was taken with the No. 2 overall pick in 2008.
The state became known more for developing NBA talent from around the country than producing homegrown players itself.
Since 2001, nearly 30 players were drafted with ties to Massachusetts, but only 11 — Bruce Brown, Jake Layman, Georges Niang, Pat Connaughton, Noah Vonleh, Shabazz Napier, Nerlens Noel, Michael Carter-Williams, Demetris Nichols, Will Blalock, Michael Bradley — were actually born or bred here.
Dybantsa’s time at national prep schools has become par for the course for prominent prospects. But his roots in Brockton matter the same way that his predecessor’s did.
“I think it’s, No. 1, a source of pride for Brockton and the greater Boston community to see one of their own gain stature like that,” said Leo Papile, who’s been tapped into the area’s basketball talent for nearly a half-century as founder and director of the Boston Amateur Basketball Club. “Whenever someone from your area distinguishes themselves nationally or internationally, I think everyone that saw him in the corner store or taught him or had him in youth sports, they all kind of share in that success. So it’s a great thing. It’s a day everybody raises the AJ flag and says hey, another one made it.”
From Walker to Ewing to Clarke, that baton for Massachusetts basketball is now in Dybantsa’s hands, and he’ll hold it as high as it’s been in more than four decades.
“It’s great for the region,” Papile said. “It’s inspirational to younger kids. It’s great for the families. When you’re a pro athlete now, you’re a worldwide brand ambassador. And part of your brand is where you’re from.”
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