There were no laughably flamboyant suits or diamond-studded loafers at last week’s NBA Draft, nor any random player from Brazil popping out of the stands or a Czech lottery pick consummating his selection with a passionate make-out session. So instead the comedy from one of the most consistently comedic nights on the sporting calendar came from elsewhere.
Thon Maker is a 7-footer who represents the truly global nature of the game in 2016. Born in Sudan before immigrating to Australia, Maker eventually made pit stops at high schools in Louisiana, Virginia and Ontario. He burst into the basketball consciousness a little more than two years ago, when mixtapes of Maker looking like a young Kevin Durant began to pop up on YouTube, describing him as “REVOLUTIONARY” and an “incredible sophomore.” He handled the ball like a point guard, shot it like wing, and blocked shots like the 7-foot stringbean he was and is.
It was almost immediately apparent Maker had his eyes on getting to the NBA as quickly as possible. He reclassified from the high school class of 2016 into 2015, only to move back to 2016 due in part to concerns over whether he could make it through the NCAA clearinghouse. Earlier this year, Maker announced plans to skip college entirely and enter the 2016 draft; such a thing was allowed because he actually graduated from high school in 2015 and spent this past year at a prep school. It’s the same reason Larry Fitzgerald was able to enter the 2004 NFL Draft despite spending only two seasons at Pittsburgh, to pick a random example from way too long ago.
In the lead up to the draft, Maker was widely projected to go during the second half of the first round. Then on draft day, last Thursday, someone posted a picture on Reddit of an Australian high-school yearbook from 2010 in which Maker is listed as a graduating senior. Later, another yearbook surfaced from the same school, this one from 2007, in which Maker is pictured as a freshman. Upon much further examination from all corners of the internet, the yearbooks seem legit. Unless he skipped four grades before high school, which seems unlikely for an immigrant learning a new language, Maker is probably at least 22 years old, quite likely 23. The rumors didn’t stop the Milwaukee Bucks from selecting Maker tenth overall, but they did forever change the way he will be perceived.
Which brings us back to the comedy. Remember those mixtapes of Maker looking like a man among boys as a high-school sophomore in Virginia? Well, that’s because he literally was a man among boys. Maker was at least 20 years old, perhaps as old as 21, a man who stood 7 feet tall and possessed enough skill to be a top-ten NBA draft pick, and here was balling the hell out on a bunch of suburban 16 year olds. He crossed over those poor kids into oblivion. He swatted their shots into the seventh row. He drained three pointers in their faces and let them hear about it.
He was an “incredible sophomore,” alright, in the original meaning of the word, in that his being a sophomore was not credible. I’ve often said that, in the abstract, I’d love to hop into a high-school girls basketball for a half and see what kind of havoc I could wreak as a 23-year-old man. Maker pretty much did the same thing for three whole seasons, and for his troubles he went in the first round of the NBA draft. Now that’s funny.