Australian basketball phenom Thon Maker has declared for the 2016 NBA draft, and his story is perhaps the most intriguing of any of the potential players trying to get their break into the Association.
The 19-year-old was born in a village in South Sudan and sought refuge in Australia when he was five, as his family fled the civil war in Uganda.
He is now based in Canada where he attends Orangeville District Secondary School and is considered a ‘five-star recruit’ – a title reserved for only the most elite high school basketballers in the world.
His mixtapes are the stuff scouts can only dream of: a towering 7’1″, 99kg giant with the ball-handling skills and finishing touches of a guard.
He is, by all accounts, an athletic miracle – but there is also a great deal of mystery and unknown about Maker.
His route to the NBA has been about as unconventional as you can get.
He came under the legal guardianship of controversial manager Edward Smith in 2009, who has taken Maker globetrotting over the past five years.
Full basketball schedule for the 2016 Olympics
He bounced around three schools in Lousiana and Virginia before shipping him off to Canada – seemingly to circumvent the NBA’s rule mandating that anyone who finished their high-school in the States must play a year of college hoops.
It was thought the power forward may head to the NCAA after being courted by Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana and Arizona State last year, but it’s been all quiet on that front since then.
Not that this unconventional route seems to have affected him too much, Sportsnet reporter Gare Joyce has been following him closely, and in his conversations with him said “he seemed like a great kid, smart, sociable, definitely committed.”
Maker’s announcement has thrown a spanner in the works coming into draft day on June 23.
Firstly, his eligibility for the draft is dependent on a decision by the League.
A foreign player can be eligible for the draft if “the player is or will be at least nineteen years of age during the calendar year in which the Draft is held, and, at least one NBA Season has elapsed since the player’s graduation from high school.”
But it’s not a done-deal and the NBA has the right to reject his application.
If he does become eligible, where he lands is a complete mystery.
Many pundits have him as a lock in the top 10, given his tremendous upside and – but there’s still just so much scouts don’t know about Maker.
He’s untested against bigger bodies in college, seems to struggle at times with contact, and hasn’t been the consistently dominant figure that fellow Australian Ben Simmons has been.
At the 2015 Nike Hoops Summit, he could only manage two points and 10 rebounds whereas Simmons was just one assist and a board from recording a triple-double.
The NBA hasn’t seen a prospect with Maker’s dimensions and skills for a very long time – but the NBA also hasn’t seen much of Maker at all.
He could be a terrifying force, a middling role-player or a Bennett-like bust – analysts will pretend to, but no-one really knows yet what Maker will turn it to be.
Whichever way it goes, it will be fascinating to watch.
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