Duke big man Maluach enters draft at deadline
Duke big man Khaman Maluach is jumping to the NBA, where he is a potential top-10 pick after helping the Blue Devils reach the Final Four.
Duke Maluach enters NBA draft
- Thread starter rick64
- Start date
Dude has a huge upside and a great pick for whoever draws him.
Kid has a ton of potential. Duke misused him terribly this season.
Lottery pick. Upside alone Id probably take him 2nd tbh
Even if his offense doesn't greatly improve he's a great defender.
Even if his offense doesn't greatly improve he's a great defender.
Not sure we beat Duke this past year if he doesn’t start cramping up. Felt like he was eating our lunch before he went down.
He should have drank some pickel juice. Instead, he took the L.
I’m not sold on him. Was he misused, sure.
But his lack of conditioning seemed to pop up at times along the season.
And he grabbed 0 rebounds in the final four game where Houston had a frontline of 6’8 and 6’8.
But his lack of conditioning seemed to pop up at times along the season.
And he grabbed 0 rebounds in the final four game where Houston had a frontline of 6’8 and 6’8.
Duke slides back a bit this season. Boozer is not as good as Flagg and will be expected to do what Flagg did.
Evans on the wing might be their best player.
Ngongba and Brown aren’t going to give them what Maluach did inside.
Foster gives them some leadership at guard.
They need to get Sarr at SG. They get him and they will have two pretty good wings to go with Boozer.
They are probably a Sweet Sixteen team with Sarr (or someone like him at SG).
Evans on the wing might be their best player.
Ngongba and Brown aren’t going to give them what Maluach did inside.
Foster gives them some leadership at guard.
They need to get Sarr at SG. They get him and they will have two pretty good wings to go with Boozer.
They are probably a Sweet Sixteen team with Sarr (or someone like him at SG).
Very real concerns with his immigration status. All South Sudanese visas got revoked. He wouldn't be able to play in the NBA with a student visa anyway, and there's no way he's getting a new visa issued with the current decision by the state department. Very real chance he ends up in Europe for the time being.
Conditioning might be his Achilles Heel in the league. He’ll have to work hard to get to the pace of the pro game, but he has God given tools!
I’m not suggesting that Maluach wasn’t a good player for Duke, but I think it would be revisionist history to try to attribute UK’s win to Maluach’s relatively minor cramping issue. Maluach played 23 minutes against UK, but he only averaged 21 minutes for the season. His backup at that time, Maliq Brown, was also considered a good defender. Plus, Maluach recovered from the cramping issue and played throughout the end of the game when UK gained the lead. In fact, Maluach was the guy Carr took it to and scored against multiple times at the end to propel UK to the win.
Yeah he was the reason Duke was so stout on defense, every single time he got in foul trouble teams made a run on them. We beat them because we got him in foul trouble finally.
I am sure with the people the NBA and Duke know he could get one. He’s not an average South Sudanese citizen over here.
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We actually started making our run I believe about 9-10 minutes left when he picked up his 4th foul. You are absolutely right in that he played at the end but him being out for a good 4-5 minute stretch got us in the game.
Yeah no way immigration status holds up him making millions after going in the lottery.
That’ll get smoothed right over by whatever billionaire owner runs the team that picks him.
That’ll get smoothed right over by whatever billionaire owner runs the team that picks him.
Flagg will likely go #1, and I’ve heard some NBA draft gurus say that both Knueppel and Maluach are likely top-10 picks. Crazy to think that Duke could potentially have 3 of the top-10 draft picks and didn’t win the NCAAT. Warms the cockles of my heart 😂
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What physical calamity hasn't been used to defend this guy's lack of development? I mean...he's likely 22/23 yrs old coming to the States late via his handler Luol Deng--and he couldn't handle Amari Williams beating on him in a November game and certainly didn't belong on the court against Houston--not getting a rebound was putrid. Oh well-another Duke 5 man who wasn't developed at all. Never fails and never will.
Wasn't this pretty much expected?
I thought he looked pretty good. But not getting a rebound in the final game is just awful.
I thought he looked pretty good. But not getting a rebound in the final game is just awful.
We definitely don't. Iirc we were down 12 when he went out.
Imo was the most dominant player in cbb last year. Duke had an embarrassment of riches. Crazy they didn't win.
He’ll be solid for them. Probably a starter, if they don’t add a better option like Sarr.
I was very impressed with his game in the all star games.
I think he is a better overall basketball player than either of the Boozer Boys.
Why would you want Duke to get Sarr and not UK?
Dang 6 points 0 Rebounds and 1 assist. Guess I didn’t notice because they cruised so long.
Cal’s 2015 failure shall always be his greatest IMO. He should have gotten KAT 30 shots in that game.
It's going to be interesting to see if Duke continues to predicate everything they do on elite freshmen.
Seems to be a dying model in the NIL transfer age.
I never said I wanted Duke to get Sarr.
I think they will get Sarr.
It’s a prediction, not a wish.
I haven't heard any news about Kentucky and Sarr except for the initial contact. Since then, everything has pointed more toward Duke as I have read Sarr would garner around 2 million or more. Not sure if Kentucky would be a player if that is his asking price and the money we have already spent on our roster.
Also, Sarr would be a luxury not a necessity for us at the moment.
Unless Oweh leaves, we don’t really have room.
We are pretty much stacked on the wings, and everywhere else.
I disagree . Sarr will be tremendous for us. If Duke gets they become very dangerous.
We need to let players play their natural position. Last year due to injuries we forced players into different roles , where they could not produce.
In mind at PG and SG we only have three players where that is their natural position: Lowe, Jasper and Aberdeen . And don’t count Chandler or Oweh as SG or PG, cause they are not.
Oweh is an undersized small forward and so is Chandler, just like Noah is an undersized PF.
So at PG and SG we have 40 minutes amount 3 players: Lowe, JJ and Aberdeen. If you get Sarr that will be 4 players for two positions which is perfect the way Pope plays minutes,
God forbid , one or two of the PG/SG gets injured like last year…. Sorry but I do t want to see Chandler at Pg again not even as a backup.
So we do need another Pg/Sg type of player which Sarr is. He would also be better than anyone else that we currently have at that position.
According to ESPN, Malauch only had 3 fouls for the game. Fox2Monk, I’m not trying to call you out. You’re one of my favorite posters and entitled to your opinion. I just think you’re elevating Malauch to a pedestal on which he didn’t belong. And in the process you’re unfairly (although unintentionally, I’m sure) discrediting UK’s win?
Maybe UK did benefit from Malauch being off the floor for a few minutes at that point in the game. On the other hand, who’s to say he wouldn’t have had a couple of turnovers, key miscues or simply reverted to his norm in that time? That was the best game by far that Malauch played over the next month. And, again, he was already playing more minutes than he was used to, which may well be why he had cramps. I mean a person could just as well argue that Duke was lucky that Malauch was playing above his norm.
Players go in and out every game for various reasons, including scheme, fatigue, etc. Malauch played plenty of minutes – again more minutes than he usually played. In fact, Malauch usually played less minutes and only played one or two more minutes a handful of times the rest of the season. So, if he was so dominant and such a world beater that UK couldn’t compete why wasn’t that enough? Why couldn’t Malauch compel Duke to a win when he played unencumbered during the key final minutes and couldn’t stop Carr. My point is there’s a ton of factors contributing to the result in any game. UK beat Duke straight up and no excuse exists to take away from that.
Sometimes stats don’t capture a player’s impact of over a game. When Malauch was playing and not tired, his presence there, would made players think twice to go into the paint. Also, his presence in the paint allowed Duke’ s guards and forwards to extend their press defense beyond the 3 point line. If I remember correctly that game, when they were able to extended their press, we were having trouble scoring because we could not get the ball to our guards or shooting players…
I agree with fox2monk , Malauch being out helped, just like it helped that Pope read Scheyer ‘s over reliance on Flagg and of course , the prediction he had on Flagg spin move where Oweh was waiting.
That game we were lucky to win, at a certain point because Duke was in lead, but also luck is made by those who understand the small details of the game. Pope was better than Scheyer and in key moments of the game our experienced player executed better what Pope was telling them to , and made FTs , compared to how Duke unexperienced coach and player executed.
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The media will hype Boozer though like he's a player of the year candidate before he plays a single game.
Trump Admin is for some reason bent on deporting this guy. He took awhile to announce because his student visa got placed on no reentry, so without the student visa and remaining at Duke it’s a gray area of what the government could do. And if you haven’t been paying attention…they’ll do whatever they want, paperwork or not, legal citizen or not. Everyone just assumes he’ll be protected as an NBA player and that will likely be true, but we’re also living in this weird time where there’s like a 10% chance he gets sent to a death camp in El Salvador.
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