Duke’s Khaman Maluach declares for 2025 NBA Draft: Why he’s a projected lottery pick

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Duke freshman Khaman Maluach — one of two every-game starters for the Blue Devils, and a key piece of the team’s Final Four run — has officially declared for the NBA Draft, the school announced Sunday.

The 7-foot-2 Maluach — who was born in South Sudan but grew up in Uganda before joining the NBA Academy Africa — is a projected lottery pick and one of the best bigs available in this class. In The Athletic’s most recent mock draft, NBA Draft expert Sam Vecenie had Maluach being selected No. 14 by the Atlanta Hawks.

Maluach is one of three Duke freshmen expected to be selected in the lottery, joining likely No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg and wing Kon Knueppel, who officially declared earlier in April. The center averaged 8.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game for the ACC regular-season and tournament champions.

NBA next. Duke forever.

Thank you @khaman_maluach!! 💙💙👿 pic.twitter.com/pFq01qKla4

— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) April 27, 2025

Despite picking up basketball at a later age, Maluach’s immense size and potential made him a five-star, top-10 recruit in the 2024 class. And while he’s still a work in progress — Duke coach Jon Scheyer said multiple times this season that Maluach’s best basketball wouldn’t come in college — the strides the big man made during his lone season with the Blue Devils were immense. His two biggest selling points to the NBA are obvious: defense, especially rim protection, and a vertical lob threat around the rim.

Start with the defense, which is where Maluach easily has the most upside. Despite being 7-2, with a 7-6 wingspan and 9-8 standing reach, Maluach has nimble feet that allow him to play multiple defensive coverages. While Duke mostly kept him in drop coverage earlier in the season, allowing him to learn the speed and angles of the college (and American) game, he quickly proved he could do more. The Blue Devils then started switching 1 through 5 in mid-January, beginning with a blowout win over Pitt, which meant Maluach regularly had to defend opposing guards on the perimeter, and he more than held his own, swatting shots from behind even in the moments when he got beat off the dribble.

As the season progressed, Duke started asking him to hard hedge on certain ball screens, and he showed the ability to recover without giving up many openings. Of course, all of that is to say nothing of his sheer presence in the lane, where he emerged as a deterrent to most drivers and one of the ACC’s most vicious shot-blockers. He finished the season with a top-100 block rate nationally, per KenPom, and 15 games with multiple blocks.

Maluach’s size also made him a strong rebounder, especially on the offensive glass, where he posted a top-10 offensive rebounding rate nationally, per KenPom. His hands were one of the biggest questions NBA evaluators had about his potential this season, and while there were certainly moments where he struggled against stronger opponents — none more notable than Houston in the Final Four, the only game all season he didn’t record a single rebound — he largely developed his touch and learned how to locate the ball in the air.

That, in turn, made Maluach a tremendous lob threat, especially over the second half of this season. The center was a constant target for Flagg and Duke’s other guards, with Maluach catching at least one alley-oop out of a short pick-and-roll seemingly every game. Altogether, that was a large reason why he shot 80.6 percent at the rim this season, per CBB Analytics, which was well above the national average of 62.3 percent.

While Maluach continues developing his post moves, that’s the most immediate way he’ll be able to help an NBA team offensively, although there is some thought, depending on which evaluator you ask, that Maluach may eventually be able to stretch the floor from 3. He only made four triples in 39 games, but showed an increased willingness to take those shots in the second half of the season. If Maluach can become even a somewhat reliable deep shooter — and his 76.6 percent from the free-throw line suggests that’s possible — then that would unlock a whole new vein of upside for any team picking him.

In many ways, though, Maluach’s best pro comparison is one of the Duke centers who immediately preceded him: Dereck Lively II, a lottery pick who started for the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals.

(Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)

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