CHICAGO — He speaks four languages and hails from South Sudan. His 7-foot-2 frame and 7-6.75 wingspan are among the largest and longest in the 2025 NBA Draft class. And if not for a handful of chance encounters over the last six years, which took him from the soccer fields of Uganda, where he fled to after leaving war-torn South Sudan, to the precipice of being a lottery pick in Brooklyn later this month, this made-in-a-lab Monstar might never have tried the sport many now believe he can become a star playing.
Meet Khaman Maluach: the most interesting prospect in June 25’s NBA Draft.
Maluach was a long and lanky adolescent — a smaller and more slender version of the man who stands to join an exclusive list of former South Sudanese men drafted into the NBA. A 6-foot-7 13-year-old, he was into soccer and studying. Basketball wasn’t in the picture. But at his tender age and with his towering size, he stood out. It didn’t go unnoticed locally. It was impossible not to notice.
Who was this gangly giant? And why was he galloping around kicking a black and white round ball instead of dunking an orange one?
Because of his height, Maluach was soon invited to a basketball camp hosted by NBA veteran Luol Deng, who like Maluach is from South Sudan. And there began the legend of how he came to know hoops. At 13 years old, late in 2019, he was around the sport for a multi-day camp in an environment he recalls was full of happiness — first as a spectator on and then as a participant itching to be in the mix. Described as a pure soul and jovial spirit by those around him, he felt comfortable. At home.
He never looked back.
“I saw a lot of tall people who were happy,” Maluach told CBS Sports, “and I was like ‘This is where I belong.'”
A chance meeting that changed Maluach’s life
The camp was just an introduction to basketball for Maluach. A fateful invite to see firsthand a new sport he felt he could play. It didn’t change his life’s trajectory. Not right away.
His life would change drastically and quickly soon thereafter, though. Walking home one day, a local basketball coach at Bethel Covenant College, Akech Wuoi Garang, spotted the sprouting Maluach on the side of the road and was taken aback by his towering figure. Akech, in a story recounted by SLAM, slammed the brakes of his motorcycle and shoved it into reverse to inquire about Maluach. They had a conversation that led to a scholarship offer and a chance to attend Bethel College as a student and basketball player.
It was one of several interactions over the span of the last six years that shaped his life’s trajectory.
The next came months later when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down virtually everything in Uganda — basketball activities, unfortunately, among them.
From shutdown to spotlight
A global pandemic was a speed bump for Maluach’s official basketball training. But his interest in the sport only grew.
Without a basketball goal during lockdown, he kept pushing himself but had to get creative: he’d stack large tires one on top of another until the makeshift rubber rim was 10 feet tall, or somewhere close. Then he’d practice his shooting.
That continued for a year before NBA scouts recommended he attend NBA Academy Africa in Saly, Senegal, which opened in November 2018. It was there, at 14-years-old, he was finally taught, well, everything — from how to hoop to how to handle himself.
“They taught me how to play organized basketball, because I went to the academy and it was my first time really playing,” he said. “They really shaped me on the basketball court and helped me off the court too. I left home at a very young age so I had to learn a lot of stuff. I had to learn how to be a man off the basketball court. The academy helped me through all that.”
Maluach was the youngest player ever at an NBA Academy school upon enrollment and roughly 4,700 miles away from his home in Uganda — nearly double the distance, for scale, from Los Angeles to Durham, North Carolina. He had to grow up fast living in a dorm away from family and friends.
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He not only survived but thrived by retreating into the solace basketball offered, soaking up every ounce of instruction and showcasing his skill set in international competitions.
He earned a spot on the 2023 FIBA World Cup team with South Sudan at age 16, the third-youngest in the tournament’s history and youngest on the team. He also helped the team qualify for the Olympics, which later gave Team USA a scare the following year with Maluach adding seven points, three rebounds and a block against the likes of LeBron James and Joel Embiid. South Sudan lost 101-100, but Maluach’s introduction to the global basketball world was a memorable one. Scouts, recruiting analysts and Duke took notice. Maluach signed with the Blue Devils as the No. 4 prospect in the class of 2025, a few spots behind future teammate Cooper Flagg.
Transition and obstacles
Making the transition from Africa to the United States was not, and still is not, without its struggles for Maluach. His ability to speak English, Spanish, Japanese and Norwegian Bokmål has helped ease the move, he said. But he essentially had to learn an entirely new world when he signed and later enrolled at Duke.
“It was just hard coming to America, getting used to a different culture, different food, and coming to a different place, meeting a lot of different people,” he said. “But my teammates and coaches at Duke helped me a lot to navigate through that, and they helped me a lot like to get comfortable, and they helped me with everything so they made it easier for me. They made my transition easier.”
One of the only constants for Maluach this last year has been basketball. It’s a language he’s still not fluent in after picking up the sport so late in life comparative to other top prospects. But he nonetheless spoke it beautifully at Duke, anchoring a 35-win Blue Devils team that advanced to the Final Four. He started all 39 games as a true freshman and averaged 8.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game while making a staggering 75.4% of his 2-point shot attempts.
His offensive rating at KenPom.com of 142.4 was No. 1 among all Division I players in major conferences.
And yet as well as things have gone for him on the court, he has been presented with obstacles off the court small and large, the latest being President Donald Trump’s travel ban imposed on South Sudanese passport holders. The order, which landed during Final Four weekend, instructed the revocation of existing visas and the prevention of issuance of new ones.
It went into effect June 9. It’s unclear if it will affect Maluach and to what extent legal immigrants, those visiting on temporary visas and tourists will be impacted.
He says he’s not worrying about the ban.
“I let Klutch Sports (his agency) handle that and I try to focus on what’s important and what’s ahead of me,” he said. “I don’t really put any focus on that.”
A pure soul
For anyone who has watched Maluach (nicknamed Man Man) the player — ferocious, intense and relentless on the floor — it is a jarring juxtaposition to hear how closely those around him describe him as if he were a 7-2 human version of a stuffed animal.
Flagg, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, says he’s a “pure human being” who is “selfless.”
“Everything about him is so pure,” Flagg said. “Some people you can just tell their intentions and whether they are pure. Khaman is one of those people. He always has a positive aura about him and has a way of putting smiles on people’s faces.”
Duke coach Jon Scheyer said Maluach is “one-of-one” off the court and made it a point to recruit Maluach and sent staffers to Africa to make sure they prioritized him because of what Scheyer saw in him as a player and person.
“He’s one of the best human beings. One of the best human beings,” Scheyer said. “Cares about others. He’s special.”
After making all eight of his 2-point attempts vs. Stanford in a 106-70 win in February, finishing with 17 points, six rebounds and one block, Scheyer also spoke to the attention to detail with which he’s noticed Maluach prepares.
“Yeah, Khaman, he’s – I wish you guys could see him every day in practice, because he’s completely about the right things,” Scheyer said. “He’s completely about the preparation, attention to detail. For only playing the game for four or five years, whatever it’s been, his feel is incredible to me. It’s just habits. I mean, you’re 18 years old, and the bigs that we’ve played this year, we’ve played the best bigs in the country. So, for him, he’s been thrown into the fire. He’s had some incredible moments. He’s also had some games where he’s had to learn. And just like I mentioned about our entire team, Khaman is so coachable. He’s got a ton of pressure on him, and what he does, he puts that pressure on himself. So, what he does is he ends up playing to his strengths, and I’m really proud of that with him.”
Rachel Baker, Duke basketball’s general manager who assumed the role in 2022, said Maluach helped keep players grounded “with his joy every day.”
“Whether he’s singing or dancing or laughing, he’s so happy to just be experiencing that,” she said.
That energy and enthusiasm for life is an asset that permeates every fiber of Maluach’s being both on and off the floor. As he first noticed when he took up basketball, there are many basketball players who are tall and happy.
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