Who is Khaman Maluach, the South Sudanese Player Picked in the NBA Draft?

“With the 10th pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, the Houston Rockets select Khaman Maluach,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced in the world’s most popular basketball league’s highly-anticipated draft night in New York.

“From Rumbek, South Sudan, the NBA Academy Africa in Senegal and Duke [University],” Silver added as the cameras cut to an emotional Maluach, who bowed his head and shook in disbelief during the ceremony on Wednesday at the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets NBA team.

The 18-year-old eventually wiped his tears and stood up to loud cheers and high fives from his close circle, before walking up to the stage to pick up his draft hat.

Clips of the moving scenes were swiftly shared on social media, with one fan saying: “Khaman Maluach’s reaction to being drafted is what sport is all about.”

The young player said it was a day he would “never forget” in his life as he capped off an incredible journey from the refugee camps in Africa to basketball’s highest stage.

Here’s all to know about Maluach:

Who is Khaman Maluach?

Born on September 14, 2006 in Rumbek, a city in the centre of South Sudan, Maluach moved to neighbouring Uganda after a civil war erupted in his home country in 2013.

In Uganda, he grew up at a refugee camp in Kawempe, an area on the outskirts of the capital, Kampala.

How and when did Khaman Maluach start playing basketball?

Maluach picked up basketball quite late, at the age of 13, when the push towards the game came from an unexpected source: A motorcyclist, who stopped when he saw Maluach walking down a road in Uganda, and offered some unsolicited yet prophetic advice.

“He was like, ‘Yo, you should start playing basketball. In three to four years, you’ll be such a tall person,'” Maluach recalled when speaking to the Olympic Games website in 2023.

The soft-spoken player began playing seriously after attending a local championship organised by South Sudan’s basketball great Luol Deng in 2019.

“I didn’t know basketball for a long time because of lack of facilities [in Uganda],” he told basketball website Pro Insight in 2023.

“It’s different out there, I had to walk at least 45 minutes to go play basketball.”

How tall is Khaman Maluach?

At a height of 7-foot-2 (218cm), Maluach stood out amongst boys of his age in his adopted hometown of Kawempe in Uganda.

“When I went to Deng’s tournament, I saw guys my height and felt like I belonged [on a basketball court],” Maluach said in his interview

- Author: Hafsa Adil, Al Jazeera

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