Вашингтоны шинэхэн сонголт Эй Жей Дибанца анхны тоглолтдоо гайхалтай тоглолт үзүүлж, Юта Жаззыг буулган авахад гол үүрэг гүйцэтгэлээ.
Лас Вегас хотноо болсон тоглолтод Вашингтон Уизардс 92-88-ын харьцаатайгаар Юта Жаззыг хожлоо. Багийн шинэ од Эй Жей Дибанца 27 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 assists-ийн үзүүлэлттэй тоглож, хүчирхэг тоглолт харуулсан юм. Тэрээр будагтай талбай руу довтлохдоо тун идэвхтэй байж, өрсөлдөгчөө алдаа гаргахад хүргэн чөлөөт шидэлтийн шугам дээр олон удаа зогссон байна.
Тоглолтын өмнө Дибанца болон Юта Жаззын Даррин Пэтерсон нарын өрсөлдөөнийг олны анхаарлын төвд байсан. Пэтерсон 24 points авсан ч 18 шидэлтээсээ ердөө 6-г нь амжилттай болгосон бол Дибанца тоглолтын турш довтолгооныг санаачилж, багаа ялалтад хөтөлжээ. Вашингтон Уизардсын дасгалжуулагчийн баг Дибанцагийн авьяас чадварыг бүрэн ашиглахын тулд түүнд бөмбөг эзэмшүүлэх үүргийг өгсөн байна.
Дибанца өөрийн тоглолтын хэв маяг нь NBA-д бүрэн нийцэж байгааг онцлоод, багийнхандаа боломж олгож, хурдтай довтолгоонд оролцох нь өөрт нь таатай байгааг дурджээ. Тэрээр Пэтерсонтой өрнүүлж буй өрсөлдөөнийг Коби Брайант болон Трэйси Макгрэди нарын түүхэн өрсөлдөөнтэй зүйрлэж, цаашид олон жил ширүүн өрсөлдөх болно гэдгээ илэрхийлэв. Энэхүү ялалтын үеэр Трэй Янг, Энтони Дэвис зэрэг багийн гол тоглогчид талбайн хажууд сууж, шинэ залуу одтойгоо танилцсан байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
LAS VEGAS — Well, now.
Thomas & Mack Center saw the latest iteration of “Who’s Next” in the NBA on Thursday. For the first time in almost a generation, the Washington Wizards had the guy at the forefront of the debate.
AJ Dybantsa’s first night in a Wizards uniform produced electricity that hasn’t been seen in a Washington player or in a Washington game in a good, good long while. And it made the three years of tanking, the last producing enough ping-pong balls following a 17-65 season, for Washington to win May’s lottery and get the No. 1 pick. There was never much doubt whom the Wizards were going to take.
Thursday showed everyone why.
Dybantsa had 27 points, seven rebounds, two steals and two assists in the Wizards’ 92-88 win over the Utah Jazz. He was dynamic. He was aggressive.
“He’s got his own shoe already?” a stunned Paul Pierce, the Hall of Famer, sitting courtside, asked early in the first quarter, seeing Dybantsa in his new Nike rollout, a to-be-named shoe expected to be part of Nike’s GT Model.
The Wizards gave the ball to AJ Dybantsa, shown guarded by Cody Williams, frequently as a point forward Thursday. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
Then, to Dybantsa: “I need a size 15, my boy.”
Two minutes later, at the other end of the court, Dybantsa drove the paint, lost the ball halfway up — but gathered it back, and in one motion, punched it on Utah’s Justin Harmon. The highlight-reel play produced the kind of roar from the near-sellout crowd that has almost always been reserved for Wizards’ opponents much of the last decade.
“That looked like No. 1 to me!” Pierce said. “I’m about to leave. I’ve seen enough.” And The Truth, indeed, headed out a couple of minutes later.
If everything around him seemed to swirl and pulsate, Dybantsa was not at all shaken in the eye of the storm.
“Everything felt normal,” Dybantsa said afterward. “I think my game kind of is built for the NBA — me getting in transition a lot, me getting downhill a lot, and me being able to make plays for my teammates.”
His soon-to-be regular-season teammates came out in force Thursday. Most every Wizard who will be in the regular rotation next season was at Thomas & Mack: Trae Young, Anthony Davis, Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George, Justin Champagnie, Bub Carrington and the newly reacquired Khris Middleton. Most of them sat together courtside, next to coach Brian Keefe, general manager Will Dawkins and the team’s governor, Ted Leonsis.
The night was billed as a showdown between Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson, the stellar guard from Kansas, who went second to the Jazz. They’ve been linked for a while among the top high school players in the country. Famously, Peterson outscored Dybantsa 61-49 in a 2025 game, with Peterson’s Prolific Prep beating Dybantsa’s Utah Prep, one of two wins Peterson had over Dybantsa in high school. Last season, in the Big 12, Peterson’s team won again, as he scored 18 of his 20 points in the first half, staking Kansas to a 20-point halftime lead.
And the Wizards also saw how much Dybantsa was chomping at the bit after Peterson put up huge numbers in two games for Utah in the NBA Summer League this week.
“I watched,” Dybantsa said. “Super impressive. I think the first game he had, like, 28. Second game he showed his facilitating ability, had 12 assists. I mean, the dude is a dog. He’s going to be a great player.”
Thursday was Dybantsa’s turn. Peterson scored 24 points, but made just 6 of 18 shots, with the Wizards’ Jamir Watkins in his shirt most of the night. Dybantsa wasn’t wildly efficient either, going 7-for-18 from the floor. Almost all of his jumpers, whether inside or outside the 3-point line, came up short. But he put continual pressure on Utah’s half-court defense.
The Wizards gave Dybantsa the ball much of the game as a point forward, letting him initiate the attack. Sometimes he got bogged down and got tunnel vision instead of moving the ball. And he took several of the extremely difficult fadeaways he shot in college. But Dybantsa also made several eyebrow-raising shots: a reverse layup, a floater in traffic. He made a great bounce pass ahead to Will Riley for an and-1.
And how he got to the line.
Of all the offensive numbers Dybantsa posted at BYU last season, the most impressive was this: He led the nation in free-throw attempts. And he displayed that ability in abundance Thursday night. The bend that Dybantsa gets on his drives, as The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie wrote about before the draft, puts so much pressure on defenders. When they meet Dybantsa’s force with their own, he snaps his head back like a 10-year vet and takes the contact to the floor. He shot six free throws in the first half, and it would have been double figures except for the NBA’s “experiment” during summer league, which has people shoot only one free throw rather than the customary two or three.
“You don’t know what to expect, but you see his talent. So we wanted to get him the ball in his hands, and let him go,” said T.J. Sorrentine, the Wizards assistant who’s coaching their summer league team here. “Ultimately, he started off pretty good, got him comfortable. Yeah, man, he’s easy to coach.”
For three years, the Wizards’ new front office spoke softly about the opportunities that could come in the next few drafts. In particular, the 2025 and 2026 drafts were the way out of the hell the franchise had been in for so long. There were Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper last year; Dybantsa and Peterson and Cameron Boozer this year. The Wizards didn’t say it out loud, but they had to get one of those guys to give them a future, a chance to build a long-lasting contender in an NBA transitioning from the LeBron James and Stephen Curry era.
The future arrived Thursday. He is years from being the best he will be, but you didn’t have to squint to see what’s possible. It was there, right in front of you. The Wizards have Dybantsa, and the Jazz have Peterson, and everyone should sit back and see what the two of them become. If it’s anything like the best rivalries the NBA has produced over the decades, all they will need to see is the nightly recap of what the other did, and they’ll be back in the gym, chasing the other, year after year.
“Off the court, we’re very cool,” Dybantsa said of Peterson. “He’s not my best friend; we don’t see each other every day. But every camp that we’ve been to, we played in USA (Basketball), won a gold medal (Peterson for the U.S. team at the 2023 FIBA Americas U-16 team; Dybantsa for the 2025 FIBA U19 Men’s World Cup team).
“But the media, and just the NBA gods, kind of built it into a rivalry. I mean, I seen somebody say it’s kind of like Tracy (McGrady) and Kobe (Bryant), reimagined. I’m a big Tracy guy; he’s a big Kobe guy. So, I mean, I guess they’re going to gas that up. But I think we’re going to be playing against each other for a long, long time.”
