CHICAGO — Khaman Maluach was just 13 years old when he first glimpsed his future.
He was invited to attend a basketball camp in Uganda hosted by former NBA star Luol Deng, who has devoted much of his time since retiring to helping grow basketball in his native South Sudan, a war-torn country that only gained its independence in 2011.
Maluach — like many from South Sudan — had grown up in Uganda after his family left as refugees, escaping the civil war and associated conflicts that rocked the country for decades.
At the time, Maluach had never played basketball, so he mostly watched what was happening at the camp from the sidelines. But he liked what played out in front of him:
“I saw a lot of tall people, and I saw a lot of tall people that were happy,” Maluach said on Wednesday in Chicago where the Duke star is taking part in the 2025 NBA draft combine. “And I was like, this is where I belong.”
Things unfolded quickly from that point, helped considerably by his growing to his full seven-foot-two height before he finished high school. In short order he got a scholarship to play basketball at a local high school, and by 2021 — at just 14 years old — he was admitted to the NBA Academy Africa in Senegal, an immersive residential program of study and basketball development aimed at creating a pipeline for elite talent from the underserved continent to the NBA.
At 16, Maluach became one of the youngest players to ever participate in the FIBA Basketball World Cup in 2023 and a year later — before his freshman season at Duke University — he was representing South Sudan in the nascent country’s first ever Olympic appearances. Just four years after taking the game up formally, he was taking the opening tip against Team USA and their roster full of future Hall-of-Famers.
But Maluach’s journey is still in its earliest stages. The next step will be the NBA draft on June 25-26, when the centre with a nine-foot-six standing reach is expected to be taken in the upper half of the first round.
“If you told me just three years ago I would be here, I wouldn’t believe it,” Maluach said. “I wasn’t seeing it, but I knew for sure one day I was going to be here, but I didn’t know it was going to be in three years.”
Could his unusual basketball path lead him to hear his name called at No. 9 where the Toronto Raptors will be picking six weeks from now?
There are plenty of reasons to make the connection. The first of which is that the Raptors have a glaring need for depth at centre behind veteran Jakob Poeltl, and Maluach is projected as one of the best centres available, offering some plug-and-play paint protection defensively and rim pressure on the offensive end along with some still developing upside, as demonstrated by the budding three-point range and fluid shooting stroke had on display during the on-court drills on Tuesday.
Raptors president Masai Ujiri has held steadfast to the notion that Toronto will pick the best player available, regardless of position, but allowed that finding a talented young big man — a role 2022 second-round pick Christian Koloko could have filled before his career was derailed by a blood clot and which 2024 second-round pick Ulrich Chomche might be slotted for, but is still considered a long-term development project — would get consideration:
“It’s a unique draft, and we feel that we will have a talented player available (where we draft), and we’ll try to get one that fits our ball club,” Raptors president Masai Ujiri said in April. “Yeah, we need another young big we would definitely look at that.”
There are other connections too: Ujiri’s passion for African basketball is well-established through his Giants of Africa foundation, and he’s got long-term interests in developing the infrastructure for the sport, both through the BAL — Basketball Africa League — and working to establishing more basketball infrastructure in the form of arenas and training centres.
In drafting Chomche with the 57th pick last year, the Raptors became the first team to take an NBA Academy product. Maluach would give them the corner on the market.
There have been some questions about Maluach’s residency status in the United States and how that might affect him if he were drafted by the Raptors and had to routinely cross the U.S. border.
The U.S. Department of State revoked visas for South Sudanese passport holders last month on the eve of the Final Four in retaliation for South Sudan refusing to accept citizens deported from the U.S. “in a timely manner,” according to a New York Times report. While Maluach, who is in the U.S. under a student visa, and other South Sudanese citizens haven’t faced deportation orders, the ruling does mean that for the time being, Maluach (and other visa holders) can’t leave the U.S. and re-enter the country under the current rules. Similarly, South Sudanese passport holders can’t be issued visas to visit the U.S.
But according to a league source, Maluach also holds a Ugandan passport, which should allow him to travel more freely.
“I’m not really focused on that right now. I let my agency handle that,” Maluach said when asked about the visa issue. “I let them handle that and I focus on what’s important to me and what’s ahead of me, and that is the combine. I’m focused on that.”
Is Maluach high on the Raptors’ radar? No one is showing their hand at this stage. Teams use a large portion of their time this week conducting personal interviews with players they have targeted. The Raptors expect to meet with about 20 prospects for about 20 minutes each by the time the combine ends on Friday.
Maluach wouldn’t reveal which teams he’d interviewed with, and the Raptors weren’t either. But some league sources I spoke with have suggested Maluach is high on their radar, while others with knowledge of the Raptors’ thinking push back on the idea.
But the Raptors don’t have to look far for a character reference, as Maluach played with Chomche for three years at the Basketball Africa Academy.
His high-profile Duke teammates have his back also:
“He’s a great kid. He’s a hard worker. He’s a pure human being, I love him to death. He’s going to be great wherever he ends up,” says Cooper Flagg, the consensus No.1 pick. “He’s just a pure soul. Some people you can just tell their intentions, everything about them is just pure and Khaman is just one of those people. Everything about him is just so genuine. He’s just a great person. …. It definitely translates onto the court. He’s selfless, he’s about the team first.
And as for Maluach’s lack of formal basketball experience? Not an issue:
“He picks up things so fast,” says Kon Knueppel, the other Duke star on their NCAA Final Four team projected as a high lottery pick next month. “The plays, what to do defensively. He’s only been playing for like, four-and-a-half years, and he picks things up quickly and becomes excellent at it and I think he’ll continue doing that going forward. He’s a sponge.”
Even if Maluach wouldn’t have predicted he would be this far on his basketball journey, it wasn’t because he didn’t believe it would eventually happen. It’s just all come sooner than he expected.
“I’ve seen people with the same background as me taking it to the league,” Maluach said when I asked him about the source of his confidence, citing a number of African players who have made it to the NBA, and also mentioning Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was an unheralded prospect from Greece of Nigerian descent with a limited basketball background who has done well for himself. “…the people around me too, the people I had around me, believed in me and pushed me to my best, and always pushed me to get out of my comfort zone. So I saw the vision, and they saw the vision.”
Could the vision include Maluach wearing a Raptors cap on draft night? Given his journey to this point, it’s fair to say anything is possible.
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