Saberestar wrote:Djedefre wrote:Absolutely. He is best rated 'cause Givony said it. But when you ask people to actually say, explain, pinpoint where his enormous talent and potential actually manifests, you get nothing palpable. I watched enough of his games not to be excited at all. Every single player you mentioned is a better basketball player than Khaman at this point. Repeating myself, maybe he is a madly dedicated worker and improves significantly in every aspect of the game in a few years, but it just doesn't look particularly realistic to me. I immediately think of Thon Maker...
Huge differerences between Maluach and Thon Maker.
Maker didn't have any experience before being drafted in 2016. He played at High School and that's it. He was an absolute mystery box in the draft.
Maluach played professional basketball for a couple years in the BAL League in Africa at just 16 and 17 years old. That league has international players there, like Lual Acuil or Omar Oraby who were two of the starting Cs that he faced in that professional league. He was improving and playing more minutes and he put good numbers on his last games. Impressive.
Then, he played as a starter at Duke and he showed a big improvement during the season. He showed that he can effectively play a role as a defensive C and rim runner in the NBA. That's another experience and proofing that Maker didn't have at all.
And Maker is only one inch shorter than Maluach BUT he was 37 lbs thinner than him at the draft. Both at the same age. That's huge to play C in the league and talks about two different types of frames.
I still see Bamba more than Ibaka with him.
But he's so bloody young, he's a good 2-3yr away from being a 24+ mins a game guy
