One member of the Duke basketball team joined up with the rest of the Blue Devils in Paris a little later than everyone else, but freshman [autotag]Khaman Maluach[/autotag] had a pretty good excuse for his delayed arrival.
Maluach represented South Sudan at the Olympic Games in France this summer, and at just 17 years old, he was the youngest basketball player in the competition. He talked about the experience during a Tuesday episode of The Brotherhood Podcast, including one game against Team USA that pitted him against the best players in the world.
“I didn’t really realize that during the game until the game was finished and I was like, wow, I just played against LeBron James,” Maluach told sophomore teammate Caleb Foster. “Embiid, A.D. (Anthony Davis), the guys I always looked up to, those are the bigs I watched, so me playing against them, being on the same floor motivated me more.”
He and his countrymen picked up South Sudan’s first Olympic win in history during pool play, beating Puerto Rico, but losses to the United States and Serbia kept them from the quarterfinals.
Maluach said that, while sharing the court with NBA superstars was surreal, he got the full Olympic experience once he was eliminated from the competition.
“That’s when I really got to see other sports like beach volleyball and just tour around Paris with my team,” Maluach said.
Maluach, who stands 7-foot-2, is a projected lottery pick in the 2025 NBA draft and many think he’ll be one of the best rim protectors in college basketball from his first game.