### BREAKING: Khaman Maluach Makes History – Selected No. 2 Overall by Washington Wizards, Becomes Highest-Drafted Player Ever to Compete in Basketball Africa League
**By Grok Sports Desk | June 25, 2025 – Barclays Center, Brooklyn | 1,047 words**
BROOKLYN – With the second pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, the Washington Wizards selected Khaman Okwok Maluach from the Basketball Africa League’s AS Douanes (Senegal), and in doing so rewrote the record books forever.
The 7-foot-2, 18-year-old South Sudanese unicorn became the highest draft pick in NBA history to have ever logged official minutes in the Basketball Africa League (BAL), shattering the previous mark held by 2022 No. 27 pick Nikola Jović, who played in the lesser-regarded Adriatic League.
Commissioner Adam Silver had barely finished pronouncing the name “Khaman… Maluach” before the Barclays Center crowd – dotted with South Sudanese flags and a raucous contingent wearing bright teal AS Douanes jerseys – erupted. Maluach, wearing a custom suit lined with the South Sudan flag and the words “Bright Future” in Dinka on the inside collar, hugged his mother, Nyaring, and BAL president Amadou Gallo Fall before walking to the stage with tears streaming down his face.
“I cried because I remembered the village,” Maluach said through translator and agent Raymond Brothers. “No shoes, no court, just a bent rim on a tree. Tonight I’m on the same stage as LeBron, Zion, Wemby. This is not just for me. This is South Sudan. This is Africa.”
The moment capped one of the most improbable and inspiring journeys in draft history.
Born in Rumbek, South Sudan, Maluach fled civil war with his family at age five, spending years in Ugandan refugee camps. He didn’t touch a real basketball until 2019 when NBA Academy Africa scouts discovered him playing barefoot soccer. By 2022, at 15, he was already 7-foot-1 and dominating the Basketball Without Borders camp. Instead of the traditional U.S. prep or college route, Maluach chose to stay on the continent, signing with Senegal’s AS Douanes in 2024 and becoming the youngest player ever to start in the BAL.
In the 2025 BAL season he averaged 17.8 points, 13.9 rebounds, and 4.1 blocks in 28 minutes, leading Douanes to the BAL championship and earning MVP honors at age 17. His viral highlights – windmill dunks in traffic, 35-foot threes, and chase-down blocks – made him the most talked-about international prospect since Victor Wembanyama.
Washington, holding the No. 2 pick after finishing with the league’s second-worst record, never wavered. GM Will Dawkins and owner Ted Leonsis flew to Dakar in April to watch him drop 24 and 18 with 7 blocks in the BAL final. Sources say the Wizards canceled all pre-draft workouts for Maluach after that trip.
“We didn’t need to see him dunk on a Nerf hoop in a gym,” Dawkins said on ESPN’s broadcast. “We saw him dominate grown men on the biggest stage Africa has. He’s the most skilled 7-foot-2 human we’ve ever scouted. Period.”
Maluach’s final pre-draft measurements at the NBA Combine were eye-popping:
– Height in shoes: 7-2¼
– Wingspan: 7-10½ (longest ever recorded at the combine)
– Standing reach: 10-2
– Body fat: 5.8%
– Max vertical: 38 inches
He then shot 84% from three in drills and ran the floor like a wing. One Western Conference executive told me, “He’s Wemby with Chet’s jumper and Bol Bol’s handle. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The Wizards envision Maluach as the ultimate modern center – rim protection, floor spacing, pick-and-roll creation, and transition terror – alongside 2024 No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg (traded to Portland in February for future assets) and rising guard Bilal Coulibaly. Washington’s new arena deal and rebrand to the “Wizards District” suddenly feels perfectly timed for a global superstar.
But the story transcends basketball.
South Sudan president Salva Kiir declared tomorrow a national holiday. The South Sudan Olympic team, fresh off a stunning upset of the USA in an exhibition last summer, now has its biggest star locked into the 2028 Los Angeles Games. UNICEF, for whom Maluach is already an ambassador, announced a $5 million “Hoops for Education” initiative in his name.
On stage, Maluach draped the South Sudan flag over his Wizards hat and spoke directly to the millions watching back home on makeshift screens in Juba, Wau, and refugee camps across East Africa:
“I tell every kid sleeping on the ground tonight: if you play with bottle caps, you play with socks rolled up – keep playing. One day the world will say your name too.”
NBA Twitter exploded. LeBron James posted a crown emoji with “Africa’s Son ✊🏾.” Victor Wembanyama wrote in French and Arabic: “Bienvenue dans la ligue, petit frère. Le plafond est à toi.” Even President Biden issued a statement: “Khaman Maluach reminds us that the American Dream is still big enough for the whole world.”
The previous highest BAL participant drafted was Jean Jacques Nshobozwabo (Rwanda) at No. 58 in 2019. Maluach’s selection at No. 2 obliterates that mark and instantly legitimizes the BAL as a viable professional pipeline rivaling EuroLeague and the NBL.
AS Douanes coach Zeljko Zecevic, who flew in for the draft, wept openly on the arena concourse. “I coached Nikola Jokić in Mega. Khaman is more talented at the same age. Mark my words – he will be MVP one day.”
Maluach will wear No. 14 – the same number he wore for South Sudan’s Olympic team – in honor of his late uncle who died in the war when Khaman was three.
Summer League begins in ten days in Las Vegas. The entire continent will be watching.
For the first time in history, the second-best player in an NBA draft class learned the game under the African sun, not American spotlights. And the league – and the world – will never be the same.
Welcome to the NBA, Khaman Maluach.
The Bright Future is officially here.
*(Sources: NBA Draft broadcast, BAL statistics, UNICEF press release, South Sudan Olympic Committee, multiple team executives on background)*
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