Milwaukee Bucks Select Thon Maker In NBA Draft


With the tenth pick in the NBA Draft, the Milwaukee Bucks selected Thon Maker, according to Sports Illustrated. Though he never played college basketball, executives in the National Basketball Associations saw enough potential in Maker to believe that he can be a successful player on the professional level because of the raw skills that he showed.

Stretch forwards are all the rage nowadays in the NBA. Every team wants the flexibility and advantage of being able to stretch a defense by having one of their front court players forcing opponents to clear out the low post area. Thon Maker has the talent to become one of those guys.

Despite his youth, it appears that Thon Maker is already comfortable with the role that he’s going to be playing in the NBA. Currently, he’s set to become a role player who does what he needs to in order to help the stars.

Though they failed to make the NBA Playoffs last season, the Milwaukee Bucks are taking the patient approach towards building their team. Management knows that Thon Maker is a couple of years from being able to be a contributor. They’re willing to wait a couple of years for him to develop.

One of the reasons why the Milwaukee Bucks were so sold on Thon Maker was because management loved his attitude. After he was done with his tryout with the team, Maker stuck around for another hour and a half with the coaching staff to see what he needed to improve on.

The Milwaukee Bucks are also intrigued with the possibility that Thon Maker can grow with Giannis Antetokounmpo. If Maker can adapt to the NBA, then he and Antetokounmpo can become quite the match up issues for opposing coaches because they’re both so tall and lengthy. It would almost be unfair at times.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo
Giannis Antetokounmpo [Photo by Mike McGinnis/Getty Images]
Despite all of his potential, very few people thought Thon Maker was going to be selected this high in the NBA Draft. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Maker was the first major surprise of the day. There were actually a few scouts that thought that Maker was going to be chosen in the second round.

Maturity was a major reason why Thon Maker went from being a potential second round draft pick in the NBA to being the tenth overall guy chosen. According to TMZ, the 19 year old opted to go straight to bed after the draft instead of hitting the town for parties.

A large part of the maturity for Thon Maker is because he was going through a lot in his real life. The Sudan was going through a civil war when he was growing up. Being able to escape that was something much more difficult than anything that he can face on the basketball court.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Jabari Parker
Jabari Parker [Photo by Mike McGinnis/Getty Images]
Thon Maker has made quite the journey through the world. After leaving the Sudan, he has lived in Australia, the United States of America and Canada. Maker is going to now consider Milwaukee to be his new home.

The Milwaukee Bucks made sure that they were able to nab Thon Maker during the NBA Draft. Fox Sports reported that the Atlanta Hawks and Detroit Pistons were both very interested in acquiring Maker. The Bucks knew that they had to beat the Hawks and Pistons to the trigger.

Through all the controversies and questions, Thon Maker has finally achieved his dream of making it to the NBA. A lot of that doesn’t even matter any more. For Maker, he needs to focus on doing what he needs to do in order to help the Milwaukee Bucks get back to the playoffs.

[Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images]

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