PORTLAND, Ore. – Standing all of 7-feet-2, it was not hard for Khaman Maluach to see over a crowd of tall teenage basketball stars to locate his soon-to-be Duke teammate Cooper Flagg at the hotel for the Nike Hoop Summit participants last week.
“I was like, ‘Yo, what’s up man? Finally, bro I get to meet you,’ ” Maluach said he told Flagg.
“He was huge,” Flagg said. “I didn’t think he was going to be that big. He’s really tall and he’s really big and strong, too.”
Flagg is the consensus 2024 No. 1 boys basketball player in the country. Maluach, of South Sudan, is the most heralded prospect coming out of NBA Academy Africa. Both will be teammates playing for Duke next season. Duke’s 2024 recruiting class included four five-star prospects who participated in the Hoop Summit on April 13: Maluach, a center who played on the World team, and forwards Flagg and Isaiah Evans, and center Patrick Ngongba II, who played for the United States.
The Hoop Summit pits the top U.S. high school seniors against the top international players under 19 years old. Despite early foul trouble, Flagg, 17, finished with team-high 19 points, game-high 11 rebounds and two assists in USA’s 98-75 win at Moda Center. Maluach, 17, had 2 points on 1-of-6 shooting, 3 rebounds and 1 block.
“You have to be better than your excuses,” Flagg said after USA’s win. “I just went out with that mindset and just stayed positive.”
It’s a long way Maluach’s hometown, Rumbek, South Sudan, and Newport, Maine, where Flagg grew up.
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Cooper said he fished and hunted during his childhood in Newport, the “chill” small town of 3,275 people. Rumbek has about 32,083 residents and serves as an agriculture center for neighboring areas. Flagg’s parents played college basketball. Maluach was discovered in 2021 while working out in Uganda and accepted a life-changing opportunity to go to the NBA Academy Africa in Saly, Senegal.
Flagg said he and Maluach communicated via text after both committed to Duke. Both are looking forward to learning more about each other’s background and cultures and their Blue Devils teammates.
“I know Maine is cold. Going to college is something very special, especially meeting the guys from different parts of America,” Maluach said. “They’re going to teach me about their places and hopefully one day, maybe when we retire from the league or when we get the time, they can go back to my country. I will invite them to come to a basketball camp. I would love for them to come.”
Being around different cultures and international students won’t be new for Flagg, who has attended Montverde Academy in Montverde, Florida, the past three years. The 112-year-old boarding school has a diverse group of 330 students that is 11.9% Black, 19.2% of two races or more, 15.8% Hispanic and 17.2% Asian or Pacific Islander, according to U.S. News & World Report.
“It’s definitely a cool experience being around people from different countries,” Flagg said. “It’s something that I have been able to experience being in the dorms at Montverde. I got to experience that full force. Just seeing kids from all over the globe, it’s really cool. It’d definitely be interesting just to hear from him and what his story is like.
“Maybe I’ll get [to South Sudan] one day. You never know.”
In recent weeks, Flagg has played in the Chipotle National Championships, Hoop Summit and the McDonald’s All-American Game. Next up is the Jordan Classic on Sunday in New York City.
Flagg averaged 16.1 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 2.7 blocks while playing for Montverde, which went undefeated and won a national title. The 2024 Naismith National High School Player of the Year is projected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft, several NBA scouts told Andscape. He has 700,000 followers on Instagram and his name, image and likeness earnings are expected to be lucrative.
So, what is the best and worst part of Flagg’s growing celebrity?
“It just gets annoying when people want autographs just to put online and sell. Stuff like that,” Flagg said. “I’m seeing people start selling stuff. It makes it hard because you want to sign stuff for little kids and you want to have those interactions and then it’s hard when there’s older men sending their kids to come up to you just so that you’ll sign their stuff. So, I’d say that’s probably the only bad part is, but it gets to be a little too much that way.
“I’d say the best thing is just having the support. Having a lot of fans that just want to see you do good. And when you do good things, you’re getting praised. So, the best part is just having people that have your back that you don’t even know.”
Marc J. Spears/Andscape
The basketball world should learn a lot more about Maluach in the coming months.
The Hoop Summit was Maluach’s first major basketball game shown in the United States. Former NBA All-Star and South Sudan Basketball Federation president Luol Deng and NBA Africa head of basketball operations Franck Traore supported him at the Hoop Summit. Maluach is the projected third pick the 2025 NBA draft, according to ESPN NBA draft analyst Jonathan Givony.
Khaman will play for Uganda’s City Oilers in the 2024 Basketball Africa League in Cairo, Egypt, and possibly in the playoffs and championship game in Kigali, Rwanda. He is also a member of the South Sudan national team, which has qualified for the 2024 Paris Games. The United States is in South Sudan’s Group C.
While extremely busy and traveling worldwide, Maluach is beyond appreciative for his hoops story.
“Sometimes I’ll just sit down and be quiet and be like, ‘Oh, my God, God is so great,’ ” Maluach said. “They planned my path different from everybody else. And sometimes when I think about it, I’ll be like, ‘Wow, I could have never imagined this two years ago, three years ago.’ I could have never imagined going to a big-time university like Duke.
“I could have never imagined being at the Nike Hoop Summit playing for Team World and going to the Olympics. Sometimes, I feel I’m living in a dream and everything is going by [fast].”
