earlier that dayI first met DiBantsa in Santa Monica when an instructor told her about the morning circuit. As a Red Bull Athlete, DiBantsa has all-inclusive access to the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center, a standalone building at the energy-drink company’s L.A. headquarters. The aspirational groove of Rod Wave and 21 Savage’s “Turks and Caicos” rocked the speakers. The tricked-out gym boasts all the high-end amenities one might expect from a Red Bull-funded health-and-fitness palace, where snowboarders and cliff divers train alongside the potential first picks in the NBA draft. There’s a biomechanics lab and a mental health performance center, an area where athletes can receive shockwave therapy, and a section where they can transition between an infrared sauna and a cold plunge. Upon entering, visitors are greeted by a dark wall with “F*** THE LIMITS” painted in bold, defiant letters. I’m told that Peter Drucker’s statement, “What gets measured, improves,” serves as a guiding principle for everything that happens here, which is why every movement, every lift, seemingly every breath is monitored. For DiBantsa, whose only college basketball season ended in March, the last three months of extensive work have been in the name of that improvement. Because, as the man who broke 19 school records at BYU later told me, experiencing any kind of wait on draft night would be a major disappointment. “I work so hard, anything less than number one would be like I did something wrong,” says DiBantsa. “I’ll be a little disappointed.”
By mid-afternoon, we were sitting on the famous Venice Beach basketball court – immortalized forever white men can’t jump-Where the most difficult and competitive outdoor pickup games take place this side of the Mississippi. Dyabantsa was there watching the scene along with his father, his trainer and his videographer as well as a few others. He was wearing Nike from head to toe—the company had already given him its signed logo, a star made up of its initials-And our interview served as a little warm-up for him before he faces questions from coaches and front office executives at the NBA Combine a week later.
To understand what bothered DiBantsa, one must first understand why a black kid from Brockton, Massachusetts, enrolled at Brigham Young University, an overwhelmingly white and notoriously strict Mormon institution in Provo, Utah. Since committing to play for the Cougars as a high school student, DiBantsa has maintained that he chose BYU because he wanted his college experience to be distraction-free. There is certainly some logic to this: BYU strictly prohibits drinking, smoking and premarital sex; The school was dismissed in 2011 A player on its men’s basketball team has admitted to having sex with his girlfriend. For DiBantsa, those restrictions helped create a relaxed, basketball-focused environment in which he spent most of his time “just cribbing.”
“I remember in the summer we had a vacation week, and it’s like, there’s Nothing To do,” DiBantsa says. “You want to go out with your mates to do something, and you can’t do that. However, that was not a bad thing!” When you consider the extensive list of programs he could have played for, you start to believe it – that this self-imposed virtuous lifestyle wasn’t so bad. He had offers from schools in bigger cities (USC, Georgetown, Washington) as well as schools with stronger basketball pedigrees (Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky). UConn, Providence and Boston College all offered him the opportunity to stay close to home. But DiBantsa — who considers herself Catholic, not Mormon — chose a rule-heavy campus where even caffeine can be a little taboo. “When I first got there, I was like, Well, I have a Red Bull deal, so I don’t know what y’all want to do,” he says, laughing. (DyBantsa says he prefers watermelon-flavored Red Bulls rather than the OG offerings, although his real goal is to get his taste.)
