8 hours ago
4
Senior Reporter & Producer
Trinidad and Tobago-born small forward Malique Lewis was selected by the Washington Wizards with pick number 30 (60th overall) of the second round of the 2026 NBA Draft at Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York, on Wednesday night. Having been selected by Washington, Lewis was then traded immediately to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Standing at six feet and eight inches tall, with a wingspan of seven feet and one inch, the San Fernando native comes into the league via an interesting path that took him from T&T to Spain, the United States, and finally to Australia before his big draft night.
A late bloomer in a manner of speaking, Lewis didn’t start playing basketball until his early teens, after being convinced to switch from football to basketball by Jeffrey Harris, then the physical education teacher at Pleasantville Secondary School in San Fernando. Lewis moved to Spain at age 16 in 2021, where he joined Fuenlabrada in the Liga ACB, the top professional basketball division of the Spanish basketball league system.
In his first season, Lewis logged just two minutes in three appearances but showed enough promise to be entrusted with 19 games the following season at an average of 18 minutes per game. Lewis scored 4.8 points and pulled 3.5 rebounds. In May 2023, he scored 24 points against Obradoiro to become the league’s fourth-highest single-game scorer ever.
These stat lines continued to highlight Lewis’ potential and would earn him a move to the NBA G League for the 2023-2024 season, joining the Mexico City Capitanes. He would go on to play 50 times for them while averaging 8.3 points and 5.8 rebounds, logging more than 25 minutes per game.
His next adventure took him to the South East Melbourne Phoenix in Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL) as part of the league’s Next Stars programme ahead of the 2024-25 season. Without hesitation, Lewis meshed seamlessly into the new environment. A season-high 15-point game in November 2024 underpinned a stellar debut season where he averaged 6.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game.
Lewis declared for and then withdrew from the 2024 and 2025 NBA drafts before going on to improve his NBL career high with 23 points for Phoenix in a 103-102 victory over the Tasmania JackJumpers on November 6, 2025.
The physicality of the NBL provided the foundation for him to become a bit more polished before this year’s draft, and after completing six pre-draft workouts with various clubs, Lewis appeared to prove his readiness when the Bucks, via the Wizards, concurred and made him the 13th player to be drafted directly from the NBL to the NBA.
Lewis’ manager and mentor, Jonathan Weekes, told Guardian Media Sport that it was a strategic move which paid off, saying, “So the first year he went, he wasn’t ready. Then he pulled out last year because, one, we didn’t get any guarantees of him getting drafted. And two, we had an opportunity in Australia to develop and to grow his game.
“The NBL is probably in the top five leagues in the world and probably the top three in terms of physicality after the NBA and ACB. So he played in two of the toughest leagues in the world prior to getting to the NBA. So his experience journey has been prepped for this type of situation.”
With Lewis, the Bucks acquire a player nicknamed ‘Baby Giannis’ because of a striking resemblance to the recently traded Milwaukee legend and two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. But comparisons to the Greek Freak do not stop at appearance, according to Weekes.
“If you look at Giannis, they could be cousins; they could be brothers, but yeah, playing style too,” he said.
Experts describe Lewis as a “three-and-D” player, referring to his reputation as a reliable three-point scoring option from catch-and-shoot three-point opportunities as well as his ability to play tough, versatile defence.
Simon Mitchell, general manager of basketball operations at the Melbourne Phoenix, said, “Malique came to us as an athletic talent, and through his dedication to his craft and the support from our performance team, he has exited as a really strong package at that wing spot. The Bucks are getting a great three-and-D player, someone who can make decisions off the dribble, but above all else, they’re getting a really great person.”
After surprisingly trading Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat on Tuesday, it might be instructive that the Bucks moved mountains to get Lewis. The 2024 NBA champions didn’t have a second-round draft pick at the start of proceedings at Barclays Centre, but were part of a three-team trade involving the Orlando Magic and the Wizards to gain the rights to the final pick of the night, which they used to choose Lewis.
Weekes said the prospect of Lewis being exposed to a franchise that holds a blueprint to develop a player of a similar nature and trajectory is what excites them the most after the draft.
“They share a lot of similarities that the Bucks are familiar with, you know?” he said.
“They have someone who did it already. So you could follow that footstep. Someone who came from the Spanish route, who was very raw, whose first sport was football.
“I’m more relieved because I’ve been on his journey with him since he was 15. A lot of ups and downs, a lot of sacrifices, a lot of failures, for this one big victory. So for me, it’s more about seeing and enjoying someone’s win, enjoying someone’s happiness, and just being along for the ride.”
English (US) ·