BYU’s Harry Potter Jab at the Wizards Draft Pick Was Perfect Timing

BYU’s social media team doesn’t miss. Minutes after AJ Dybantsa went No. 1 overall to the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night, the Cougars dropped a meme that basically wrote itself.

“You’re a Wizard, AJ,” the account posted, with Dybantsa responding: “I’m a what?” It was a direct lift from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the scene where Hagrid tells a young Potter he’s actually a wizard. And honestly, it worked.

The 19-year-old from Brockton, Massachusetts is now officially a Wizard. And the Wizards need him to be something close to magical. Washington has been stuck in the mud for years, a franchise that can’t seem to get out of its own way. But this draft pick changes the conversation.

Dybantsa led the NCAA in scoring as a freshman. That’s not nothing. He put up 25.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game, shot 51 percent from the floor and 33.1 percent from three. For a 19-year-old playing his first college season, those numbers are absurd. He was the best player on the floor almost every night, and it wasn’t close.

The Wizards have Anthony Davis and Trae Young now, too. That trio could actually be something. But Dybantsa is the building block, the guy they’re hoping becomes the face of the franchise for the next decade. Washington has been searching for that guy since… well, a while. Maybe longer.

BYU is understandably proud. Dybantsa put the program on a national stage in a way that few freshmen ever do. He was must-watch basketball, the kind of player who makes you pull up a random Tuesday night game just to see what he’ll do next.

In the Harry Potter movies, the kid didn’t know what he had yet. Dybantsa knows. He’s been the best player in every gym he’s walked into for years. The question now is whether he can polish that jumper from deep and become the kind of star who drags a franchise out of irrelevance. Washington is betting he can. And they’re betting big.

So the meme was cute. But if Dybantsa turns the Wizards into a real team, nobody will be laughing. They’ll be thanking the Cougars for sending him.