Khaman Maluach 2025 NBA Draft Profile

Khaman Maluach 2025 NBA Draft Profile

We are less than three weeks away from the 2025 NBA Draft! Today, we will be previewing Duke’s Khaman Maluach, one of the best bigs in this class! Let’s jump right into it!

Height (no shoes): 7’0.75 (7’6.75 wingspan, 9’6 standing reach)

Weight: 252.8

Draft Age: 18.8

Position: Big

A five-star recruit out of NBA Academy Africa, Maluach was the fourth-best player in the 2024 recruiting class. He chose Duke over offers from Kansas and UCLA, joining a fleet of talent at Duke, led by top recruit Cooper Flagg.

Maluach had a limited role in his freshman season at Duke, but he thrived. He averaged 8.6 points and 6.6 rebounds in just 21.2 minutes per game, shooting 71.2 percent from the floor and 76.6 percent from the free-throw line, albeit on just two attempts per game. Let’s examine his profile!

Strengths:

Khaman Maluach is a mammoth. He made everyone else on the basketball court look microscopic. Better yet, he moved better (north-south) than the majority of bigs he faced. You don’t see relatively nimble 7-foot-2 players every day; Maluach was an exception.

He may have only played roughly 22 minutes a night, but they were an impactful 22 minutes.

Maluach hauled down 18 percent of available boards with the third-best offensive rebounding rate in the country (16.5 ORB%) among centers who played at least 500 minutes. Better yet, in ACC play, he hauled down 21.3 percent of available offensive rebounds and 22.2 percent of his all available rebounds. That’s laughably insane.

Furthermore, his (hand) size allows him to have one of the biggest catch radii in this class. At Duke, Maluach’s role was simple: Rim run. When he dove, you could throw it anywhere within a 10-foot radius near the rim and he almost always came down with it.

Outside of his ability to reward Duke with second-chance points, his vertical spacing and rim-running ability were pretty crucial to Duke’s offense. He converted on an absurd 81.4 percent of his shots at the rim, including 81 dunks, according to Barttorvik. Maluach was a very willing screener and it created open opportunities for him.

Defensively, I was pretty surprised by how scheme-versatile he was at his size. He was always communicating along Duke’s back-line, but head coach Jon Scheyer let Maluach play deep drop, a high(er) drop near the level and, if the situation called for it, in space against smaller, quicker ballhandlers. The reps were mixed, but I expected him to exclusively play deep drop.

He was active with his ginormous length, rejecting 2.8 shots per 75 possessions. Few players were consistently able to shoot over him. He wasn’t afraid to try and send your shot into the third row if you weren’t careful.

Ryan Kalkbrenner 2025 NBA Draft Profile

Weaknesses:

Maluach may be a mammoth, but he doesn’t move well enough laterally to consistently defend in space at the NBA level. He was scheme versatile at Duke, but not at the NBA-level yet in my opinion. He has the frame, length and IQ to be a good drop defender. But he’s not quite versatile enough unless he improves his foot speed and hip mobility; at the next level, Maluach is closer to an anchor than he is a Swiss Army knife defensively.

In a more expanded role, I think he’ll flash more shooting and ball skills. He has good form with good mechanics for a 7-foot-2 big, though his outside touch had a wide range of outcomes. That wasn’t his role. He still needs to improve that part of his game.

Maluach also needs to improve with the ball in his hands. His ballhandling and passing ability were quite poor, even though he rarely showcased those aspects of his game. Almost all of his shots weren’t self-created.

Furthermore, bigs still need to operate DHOs, be connective passers and locate shooters/cutters in the short roll–neither of which he did well enough. He can improve and I think he will, but that part of his game appears very raw heading into his rookie season.

Maluach also tended to foul a little too much for my liking. He averaged 4.4 fouls per 75 minutes. When he got beat off the dribble, he didn’t move his feet very well and played with his hands–which is a no-no. He also didn’t stay straight up around the rim all the time–use your size, big fella!

Projection: Top-10 Pick

I love Maluach. I still have him as my 1B for bigs in this class, but I would definitely bet on his upside if I were a team in the top-8/9. There are things he’ll need to iron out, but if you keep his role simplified right away, he’ll be successful. He’s still raw with his ability, but his upside is so tantalizing–especially if you’re a team that can maximize his ability with a facilitator/multiple shot creators.

***

Click Here for more NBA Content

Subscribe to Vendetta’s Twitch

Subscribe to Vendetta’s YouTube

Check out the Vendetta Shop

Check out Vendetta Fantasy Contests