A Message From P.H.A.S.E. 1 Academy Jamaica: The Road AJ Dybantsa Walked Is the One Our Kids Are Walking Now

To our families, our athletes, and everyone following this journey —

We want to share something that happened at a clinic we hosted in partnership with P.H.A.S.E. 1 Academy, because it says everything about why we do what we do.

When AJ Dybantsa stood in front of our young athletes, he didn't open with the highlight reel. He opened with the losses.

He told them the truth almost nobody tells young players: when he first stepped onto the MADE Hoops circuit, he lost. Around ten games. And instead of breaking him, those losses built him. They showed him exactly where he stood against the best players his age — and exactly what he needed to do to close the gap. He went home, put in the work, and turned that hard information into a plan.

We all know how the rest of that story is going. The #1-ranked high school player in America. A season at BYU. MVP of the 2025 FIBA U19 World Cup. And on June 23, 2026, the #1 overall pick in the NBA Draft, selected by the Washington Wizards.

The losses came first. The lesson came from the losses. The greatness came from the lesson.

Why we put our athletes on this circuit — on purpose

To us, that's not a motivational story. It's our blueprint.

When our Global Director, Wayne Dawkins, built the plan to take P.H.A.S.E. 1 Academy Jamaica athletes to the MADE Hoops LIVE Circuit, this was the entire point. We're not going to the United States to win every game and take pretty pictures. We're going for exposure — to put our best young Jamaican players in front of the best young players on the planet, so they can find out, honestly and unforgettably, where they stand.

You cannot fix what you cannot see. A player who only ever dominates at home has no idea what "elite" actually feels like until they're guarding it and getting guarded by it. The MADE Hoops circuit is where that reality check happens — one of the proving grounds where the top prospects test themselves before the world knows their names. The same kind of stage where a young AJ Dybantsa found out what he was really made of.

Wayne's strategy is deliberate, and we stand behind it fully: raise the level of the competition our kids face, and you raise the ceiling of what they believe is possible. That's how we develop our talent — not by protecting our young players from losing, but by giving them the right losses, at the right time, against the right people.

Some of our athletes will lose games in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Good.

Let's be honest with you about what this summer will look like. Our teams — boys and girls, ages 13 to 19 — are walking into rooms full of nationally ranked American and Canadian talent. Some games will be hard. Some scorelines will sting.

That's the tuition. That's what we came to pay.

Because every one of our athletes is going to come home from MADE Hoops LIVE knowing something they didn't know before they left: what the top of their age group actually looks like, how far away it is, and exactly what to work on to get there. A guard finds out his handle isn't tight enough under real pressure. A forward learns she has to add a counter move. A team discovers what elite pace and physicality really demand. That information is priceless, and you can only get it on that stage.

The player who loses to the best and studies why becomes the one nobody can stop two years later. AJ Dybantsa told our athletes that with his own mouth. Now they get to live it.

This is bigger than one trip

Every great player has a version of this story — a moment they got humbled by elite competition and chose to answer it with work instead of excuses. We wanted our athletes to hear it directly from someone who just lived it all the way to the #1 pick, and then to go write their own version of it.

That's the journey we're on at P.H.A.S.E. 1 Academy. This summer, we're not chasing trophies — we're chasing truth. Where do we stand? What do we need? And then the question that separates the ones who make it from the ones who don't: are we willing to go get it?

Our answer is yes. Jamaica's next great players are finding out right now, on the same road AJ walked.

Follow the journey: www.phase1academy.com/p1a-2026-rosters

Wayne Dawkins Global Director, P.H.A.S.E. 1 Academy Jamaica Journey Of An Elite 1