The following is part of Raptors Republic’s series of pieces previewing the 2025 NBA draft. You can find all the pieces in the series here.
Welcome to this year’s draft series! Unfortunately, I’m going to have to deliver a lot more scouting reports to the fine readers of Raptors Republic this year. Had the Raptors won the lottery, I could’ve written about Cooper Flagg, a handful of second round guys, and called it for the summer. Now because the sins of Nico Harrison somehow rewarded his franchise with the best college prospect this millennium, I am forced to actually toil away and do some scouting for The Man (kidding, Louis).
I gave a brief blurb of my opinions on Maluach back in February. As the college season continued on, I was hoping that I’d start to see what everyone else saw, and maybe Maluach would flash a bit more skills to go along with his physical gifts, quieting my concerns.
I still came away disappointed.
Khaman Maluach – 7’1 Big – Duke University – Age: 18
The Offence
The far more hypothetical aspect of Maluach’s game, I have little faith in him being much more than a lob big or a play finisher in the paint. That said, he shouldn’t have a lot of trouble fitting into either role in the NBA thanks to his astronomical reach and solid touch. He’s a very efficient play finisher (99th %ile) out of the pick-and-roll as well. That being said, Maluach isn’t a ball handler and he definitely doesn’t help keep the ball moving.
There have been rumblings ranging from hypothetical musings to straight up disinformation about Maluach’s shooting ability.
He also attempted some threes during South Sudan’s Olympics run. This, combined with his relatively comfortable free-throw percentage, has led some to believe that Maluach can develop into a floor spacer as well. I would caution against that.
I don’t have concerns about Maluach being a competent free throw shooter. He didn’t get to the line that often, but still sunk about 76% of his 2 attempts per game. A positive to be sure, but I don’t think that alone gives reason to assume that he’ll stretch that range beyond the arc.
While Duke’s gameplay likely allowed for little to no Maluach threes, he still only went 4/16 on the season. In the clip above, he’s making shots in an empty gym, sure, but everybody knows that even the worst shooters in the league can shoot the lights out in similar environments. My point is that the sample size is not enough to draw any conclusions, and his form is not at a place where I’d project him as someone being comfortable enough taking enough threes per game for it to matter.
The Defence
With a standing reach that would place him among the NBA’s giants (Gobert, Wembanyama, Williams), it remains to be seen if Maluach’s monstrous 7’6.75″ wingspan can reach the high expectations placed on him as a defender.
Defence is another part of the game where I think people have gotten caught up in the pure size of Maluach and let that lead them to the assumption that he’s an amazing defensive prospect. The fact of the matter is that Maluach also has several concerns on this end of the floor.
Maluach moves on the perimeter well for his size, though he graded rather poorly in agility testing at the combine. He creates an imposing barrier for opposing players with his arms spread wide. My biggest problem with Maluach is his overall IQ on the defensive end. I can’t tell you how many times he’s been defending on the perimeter only for him to lose his man off a switch, or straight up leave the paint unprotected because he gets overconfident. His positioning is all over the place, ranging from absolutely poor to just straight up confusing. In this clip below, Maluach makes at least 3 major defensive errors in his rotations, in spite of his rapid movement and his teammates being able to cover for him on his missed covers.
For a player expected to be a defensive anchor at the next level, this is a huge concern since it shows he still has to learn some basic defensive fundamentals and greatly improve his decision making. Aspects of the game that are incredibly difficult to learn and fine-tune when you get to a high level.
He has the tools to be an impactful rim defender, but his block rate and raw defensive output leave much to be desired. There are moments when he uses his daunting wingspan to deny points at the rim, but it comes far less often than you’d hope, even taking his lower minutes played into consideration.
The rebounding is another issue. His offensive rebounding rate is actually quite good, and he tends to show some hustle when going for those second chance boards. On the other hand, his rebounding numbers are simply poor. This was on display most notably in Duke’s Final Four game where he posted a whopping 0 boards in 21 minutes. A one game sample size, but his rebounding numbers in general were mediocre all season, so a concerning addition to the trend at the very least.
The Fit
The fit is pretty clean for the Raptors. I don’t think it’s the cleanest, as the team appears to be rapidly pivoting into a competitive timeline, which may put Maluach’s development on the back burner.
That being said, it’s likely he would be seen as the successor to Jakob Poeltl in a few years. I don’t know if he would be a very impactful backup right away, but the Raptors may have no choice as their depth at the 5 still remains rather shallow (sorry, Chomche).
The Raptors were one of the worst teams in the pick-and-roll last year, and that’s one of Maluach’s strengths on offence, so they’d need to start utilizing that a hell of a lot more to get him involved on offence.
The Conclusion
There’s something to be said about how impressive Maluach’s rise has been since just starting organized basketball at age 14. Representing South Sudan in the Olympics and being recruited to one of the best programs in college basketball are no small feats either.
I’m expecting varied reactions to this, as Maluach has become something of a fan favourite among Raptors fans already, even before they dropped to the 9th selection. Despite that, I feel that the concerns with his game are valid. He has the physical tools, but he has to actually show translate those tools to on-court production. Since he won’t be much of an offensive player, Maluach’s overall IQ on the defensive end needs a major boost, and while he’s only been playing basketball for a short amount of time, it puts him in a position where he’s much more of a risky bet — especially high up in the draft.
Look at past drafts. There really isn’t much success for lottery big men in general, and far less for ones who come into the league as super raw projects. I’m all for guys with a lot of potential, but they also have to show some tangible skills for me to buy into it, otherwise we’re just projecting our wishes onto a player who in reality has a small chance of reaching those sky-high expectations.
Expected Pick Range: 5-12. Hard to see him slipping out of the lottery. Teams like Washington and Utah could fall in love and take him before Toronto has a chance.
Brendan’s Big Board: Late first round. I’ve listed my reasons as to why I wouldn’t target Maluach in the top 10, but there reaches a point where you can feel comfortable just taking him as a tools bet. He could undoubtedly still blossom into a good player, but I just wouldn’t be comfortable taking him this high in the draft from a pure value perspective, especially with other bigs in the class who have shown similar defensive impact with more well-rounded offensive games (Newell, Sorber, Fleming, Kalkbrenner, to name a few).
