On SI’s Eli Henderson relayed Bill Self’s reasoning for passing up on the next big thing wing, AJ Dybantsa: Kansas needs to spread the NIL wealth around the entire lineup. One-man shows don’t tend to win titles at the collegiate level.
“Traditional Powerhouses like the Kansas Jayhawks, which initially pursued Dybantsa, appear to be opting out of this bidding war, instead focusing on other top players with a lower NIL price tag,” Henderson prefaced before saying, “This isn’t about Kansas being cheap; it’s about long-term strategy. With the average NIL compensation for top-tier players in the transfer portal estimated at around $750,000, allocating $4 million to one high school recruit could have major repercussions on a program’s ability to build a complete,competitive roster.”
Dybantsa told Paul George and the “Podcast P” panel that he was looking for a family-oriented approach that will fast-track him to the NBA.
“Everybody’s gonna think you should have the four or five blue-bloods in there, but I mean me and my family have pillars,” Dybantsa said. “We need a family-oriented school, I need a coach that’s not gonna sugarcoat, I need the best and fastest development plan — I’m trying to be a one-and-done, I need a winning organization and I just picked the best seven schools that I think fit that … I’m just trying to choose the school that’s best for me.”
AJ Dybantsa on why he reclassified from 2026 to 2025 recruiting class
Dybantsa explained how his frame filling out was the only thing that kept him from reclassifying from 2026 to the Class of 2025 during that interview with George – a player he is hoping to emulate from an earnings standpoint but is hoping to have a shorter college career than.
“This is my original class, I just wasn’t ready to play with these guys yet, and then once I grew into my body and once I got a strength coach, I was like ‘I’m ready to go back up,'” Dybantsa said.
Dybantsa has no crystal ball predictions yet. Where he’s looking to attend for a one-year transformation into an NBA-ready prospect is unclear.
