The player who until October did not touch the $1 million mark is on his way to ruling the NIL charts. After having an unexpected push to $1.9 million, and leaving behind Bryce James, AJ Dybantsa’s NIL has seen much growth in the past few days such that he is on his way to touch the top-ranked Cooper Flagg.

The 2026 NBA’s projected number-one pick saw an increase of $0.1 million in his NIL valuation, with which he reached the $2.5 million mark. Currently, Dybantsa has 500K followers on social media and is placed at the top position in the high school NIL rankings. And in the NIL 100, he occupies the sixth place. This has brought him near Flagg ($2.6 million NIL), the top-ranked athlete in college basketball.

As of now, there are no athletes between Flagg and Dybantsa in the NIL 100. While the 17-year-old is poisoned on the 6th, Flagg is on the 5th. Notably, the Duke Blue Devils star has 899K, while, as mentioned before, Dybantsa has just 500K, and most probably, as his recruitment journey spreads out, it will get him more social media following, and his NIL might increase. Currently, it is reported that he has received offers from 30 colleges.

Dybantsa’s growth in the last 10 weeks has been phenomenal. The Utah Prep School star has experienced a $446K growth as per ON3 in the past few weeks which is almost a 22% growth. No doubt that brands like Nike and Red Bull are cashing in on him. For the unversed, with the Red Bull collab, he became the first men’s basketball player to sign a deal with them. “The partnership was right there, like, Red Bull gives you wings, and I can for sure fly, so it’s a special partnership,” he expressed. Meanwhile, with his unexpected moves, he has reached too far from Bryce James.

Bryce James stranded on his journey

LeBron James‘ youngest son is currently placed at a $1.3 million evaluation. Though he has 3.4 million followers, Bryce is not able to improve his NIL valuation. Many say it could have been brought by the fact that he is nowhere compared to his peers in basketball prowess, and due to that, brands have stopped collaborating with him much. The last post on his Instagram account is for Taco Bell.

Bryce is fifth in the high school basketball rankings in NIL and 38th in the NIL 100. Meanwhile, at the same time, Dybantsa’s NIL grew as there were murmurs about his recruitment process. “He’s gonna get a ton of money, like a ton of money… Somewhere in the, it could be $7 to $9 million range, next year, are the numbers I’m hearing right now.” Field of 86 podcast host Jeff Goodman predicted about Dybantsa.

He then featured in the Nike commercial, having signed with them just two weeks prior. Following his induction into the Nike family, there was a clip on social media that had Kevin Durant‘s voiceover. Since then, the 2025 no. 1 recruit’s NIL has only grown. The 6 feet 9 inches forward from the past week grew from $2.05 million to $2.2 million and then to $2.4 million. And that leaves Bryce all the more affected as his chances of catching up decrease. Now, it remains to be seen whether Dybantsa will be able to topple Flagg and whether Bryce will be able to catch up.