Why is the face of the Washington Wizards on LinkedIn?

On the most consequential morning of AJ Dybantsa’s life, hours before the NBA draft, he pulled out a laptop and let his thoughts wander.

“I’m typing in the hotel,” he started in a diary-style entry. “This’ll probably be the last time I’m in my room today. Definitely the last time on my computer. The last time doing a lot of things before … before becoming an NBA player.”

Dybantsa ticked off a few more observations before signing off. He gave it a once-over and hit publish on his latest LinkedIn post.

Then the comments came flooding in.

“You’ve shown the draft isn’t just a sports ceremony, but a professional milestone — almost like a job interview,” one user wrote.

“The draft isn’t just selection. It’s organization alignment at scale,” another said.

A more lighthearted commenter added: “We ballers are different animals on the job market.”

One by one, hundreds more followed. They treated it as if Dybantsa had announced a summer internship at Goldman Sachs. Never mind that he was about to become the face of the Washington Wizards.

Using LinkedIn has become a quasi-status symbol for top athletes. Knicks star Jalen Brunson, NFL draft pick Fernando Mendoza, NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and now Dybantsa have made it a hotbed of headliners. Your quirky, sometimes-nerdy, always-eccentric resume app for the 9-to-5 is shared by NBA champions and NFL quarterbacks. And, predictably, it’s created quite the awkward dynamic.

But one thing is clear: If you’re a sports star, you connect on LinkedIn.

“There’s a higher barrier of access to connect with people on LinkedIn. I think it gives a little bit more cachet,” said Nicky Lewis, a professor of media at Indiana University. “It gives it a little bit more leverage in a social media environment.”

The seeds for this unexpected LinkedIn revolution came just over a decade ago in Florida. Back in 2015, the University of Miami launched a pilot program for a business degree for professional athletes.

At the time, ESPN released the documentary “Broke,” which focused on athletes mismanaging their millions. The statistics on how many former players ended up in financial distress were just hitting the mainstream.

And as part of the program, Miami asked athletes to create LinkedIn profiles.

“There was a need for athletes to professionalize themselves and their personas,” Lewis said.

The program was successful, but the LinkedIn portion never caught on. Twitter and Instagram were still the dominant forces of the day. The most cutting-edge athletes used Snapchat, then a relatively new platform. But LinkedIn was still seen as the fringe home of your finance friend or law partner.

“The president of your local Red Cross,” Indiana media professor Galen Clavio lovingly described LinkedIn’s clientele.

But around the onset of name, image and likeness compensation, the landscape changed. College athletes could cash in on brand deals, and LinkedIn became a valuable space to connect with businesses and attract specific partnerships. Dybantsa, for instance, has had a deal with Nike since high school and signed an eight-figure deal with sports retailer Fanatics during his freshman year at Brigham Young University.

At the same time, the other social media platforms lost some of their sway. Twitter rebranded to X and Instagram became less ubiquitous among young people.

“I wrote a textbook [in 2020] about social media and sports, and I didn’t pay a lot of attention to LinkedIn as a communications platform for athletes when I wrote it,” Clavio said.

LinkedIn sensed the shift, too, extending a brand partnership to Mendoza as more athletes flocked to the space.

“A lot has changed in seven years. There’s a big revolt coming amongst users against Instagram. X is limping along. No one’s on Facebook,” Clavio added. “There’s just not a lot of places that look attractive for younger people.”

And LinkedIn’s model was certainly attractive, particularly for the Gen Z athlete.

Growing up in the social media era, athletes were becoming stars younger than ever. Dybantsa was a household name for basketball fans by eighth grade. In Boston, he was selling out high school gyms before he could legally drive thanks to his TikTok highlights.

At one gym in Utah, he couldn’t exit the locker room into a high school hallway because a mob of young kids swarmed the door. Each one had their phone out, waiting to post a picture or video.

And with that much scrutiny, Dybantsa and other star athletes were taught to guard their image. Yet so many social media platforms kept prying for more. Twitter users wanted to know what movie you were watching. Instagram wanted pictures with your friends. LinkedIn was the one place asking for less.

“I think for the athletes in Gen Z, there’s an attraction to the idea that I can be on a social network where I don’t have to share very much of myself, other than the things that I specifically want to share,” Clavio said. “Gen Z is a lot more like Gen X in that they really don’t want to talk about themselves publicly. On other social networks, the currency is talking about yourself and sharing things about yourself.”

Clavio added that there might be a psychological hurdle for players like Mendoza or Dybantsa who never had a choice whether to use social media.

“I think for a lot of Gen Z, they resent the fact that they were essentially kind of dropped into social media from birth without really having a lot of say in how it operates, and this is part of their way of regaining some control over their own digital persona,” he said.

The self-serious clientele of LinkedIn who were once viewed as a drawback became an advantage. Athletes could curate who followed them. There were no more anonymous users. In a highly visible industry, Twitter is often filled with criticism. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is positive. People congratulate others for new jobs, angling for their own move up the corporate ladder.

Just look at the comments on Brunson’s recent LinkedIn post. It was filled with people wishing him well and complimenting his children’s book, which encourages kids to play multiple sports.

“Trying different sports before finding the one that fits is such a useful career lesson too,” one user wrote. There was no mention of basketball.

And in some cases, the personalities on LinkedIn meshed with players. Mendoza is a former Cal business major who would’ve worked on Wall Street if winning Heisman Trophies hadn’t gotten in the way.

“His background at Cal, his personality, and his rigid daily life. LinkedIn works really well for that,” Lewis said.

As a bonus, LinkedIn offered easy access to target audiences. Gilgeous-Alexander, for example, wanted to break into fashion. He walked the runway at men’s fashion week. But posts about style would have been a fish out of water on Twitter — or bait for criticism. On LinkedIn, they were gold.

“I think it’s an opportunity for them to get heard in a way that they can’t get heard, or even recognized, on these other platforms,” said Jennifer Mulchandani, the CEO of the D.C. marketing firm Arlington Strategy.

Less than 24 hours after the draft, Dybantsa spruced up his LinkedIn profile to reflect his new life. He added the Washington Wizards to his work history and updated his bio. He even typed out a fresh post reflecting on draft night. He did the same after his first Summer League game in Las Vegas, fresh off scoring 27 points against the Utah Jazz.

And the comments remain equally single-minded. But not on hoops.

“Getting through those slow days at work can be tough,” one commenter replied to Dybantsa’s Summer League note. “Let’s discuss on my podcast … next week.”

But weird as it might be, athletes like Dybantsa are finding comfort in LinkedIn’s dorky world. It’s the new social media currency among the stars.