A Devilish Look Back At Round One Of The 2025 NBA Draft

The more you see of Duke’s first round picks the more you realize how special they are.

The first round of the draft has come and gone and it was a great night for Duke Basketball, Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach.

Flagg started things off as Dallas selected him #1 as expected. He talked about his dream coming true and later about sharing the moment with his mother, father and brothers and also about what good people Knueppel and Maluach are.

Before the draft started, ESPN had cameras in Newport Maine, Flagg’s hometown and you could just honestly bathe in that for a long, long time. Basketball is a big-time sport but the intimacy of the sport lends it to small towns like no other. Hoosiers does a beautiful job of illustrating this, and Wednesday night, so did Newport.

We didn’t see this, but we heard Flagg’s high school coach said he had changed things forever for kids in Maine and then got very choked up. It’s a huge deal for those folks and Flagg obviously has returned their love.

Incidentally, Flagg said before the draft that his mom had picked out his blue conservative suit. He got some guff online for his shirt but big deal. Looked good on him and it’s nice to have your parents looking out for you.

As for Knueppel, when Charlotte took him with the #4 pick, he came on stage in a darker suit but it was quietly elegant. He had a small cross pinned on his left lapel, which was in contrast to some more extravagant lottery jewelry and he quietly but firmly made it clear that faith is a big part of his life.

And in a nice but awkward touch, all of his brothers were interviewed (if you don’t know there are five in total and all of them are hoopers).

The interviewer asked a question about who could beat Kon and clearly none of them wanted to take away from his moment. They looked back and forth between one said that well, in the paint he might be better. It was a strange moment but really great because you got a sense of the spine that family shares.

The showstopper though was Maluach. He went with the #10 pick to Houston and quickly traded to Phoenix.

When his name was called, Maluach was overwhelmed. He put his head down briefly and then looked up with tears in his eyes. By the time he got to David Stern for the traditional pic with the Commish, Maluach’s face was crying Jordan wet. And why wouldn’t it be?

It was an outlandish dream - Maluach himself said it seemed delusional - for a Sudanese refugee who grew up in Uganda to make it to the NBA five years after he took up the game.

Look up Maluach’s hometown in Wikipedia. It’s worlds away from where he is today.

When you think about it, all three rises are unlikely. Only a couple of players from Maine have ever gotten to the NBA. Knueppel is now the highest draftee ever from the state of Wisconsin, something no one would have dreamed about before the season started. And Maluach? His story beggars belief. Someone passed 13-year-old Khaman on a motorcycle and told him he was tall and should try basketball. So he did and he liked it and got better quickly.

When he moved on to NBA Academy Africa, where he met former Blue Devil (and fellow Sudanese Luol Deng) and watched Zion Williamson on his phone late at night, when the rates are cheaper.

He had to leave his family behind and didn't see his parents again until last summer’s Olympics.

He had to move to another country with a vastly different culture and had to learn to navigate that.

And all along, he had to continue to improve.

Now we see Flagg as the prize of the draft, Knueppel emerging as a Top Five pick after being terribly underrated in high school, and Maluach.

A million things could have derailed his rise but here he is. And as polished as Flagg and Knueppel are, Maluach is still terribly raw. He’s become a good defensive player, but offensively, he’s got a ways to go. You could see that when he got rebounds and a chance to take it back up - he rarely would.

When offense becomes instinct for him, when he develops a bit more of a mean streak, Maluach is going to be unstoppable.

And say this for him too: Duke fans fell in love with him, and Phoenix fans are going to love him too. He’s special.

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On another note, Flagg joins Dallas, where he’ll find Duke mentors Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively. Lively posted this on X for Flagg. He’ll be well looked after in Big D.

Maluach will find a significant Duke contingent in Phoenix, where currently, Grayson Allen, Tyus Jones and Mason Plumlee currently toil. And on Draft Night, or the first night anyway, the Suns picked up Mark Williams. So that means that Maluach may get two big men tutors in Plumlee and Williams.

Williams should be particularly valuable for his development. He’s been down some of the same roads that Maluach will have to journey down and he can give him daily competition at his own size. Assuming that he doesn’t get traded again, because you never really know, the two of them should be really good for each other.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood is represented in Charlotte too as Seth Curry and Wendell Moore are currently Hornets. Both may prove to be valuable mentors to Knueppel as he transitions to the toughest league in the world.