Photo by Sara Stathas for B/R Mag

The broad outlines of Thon Maker's biography—four countries, three high schools—would suggest chaos, yet he exudes only resilience.

His family, members of the Dinka tribe, fled Sudan's civil war when he was six. Maker remembers a long drive to Uganda, where he and his five siblings, along with their mother, stayed until receiving visas to move to Perth, Australia. His father stayed behind.

The move was presented to the children as a joyous event, an opportunity to further their educations. Maker recalls a celebration in their honor, with friends and neighbors toasting their future success.

"Mom played us the video in Australia," Maker says. "We were dressed up and in the middle, sitting down on a table. And everybody, the whole community, was in the backyard. And each person would stand up, some of the leaders, and say a message to us."

Maker recalls the adults' admonitions: "'You be yourself. Your dad is this way, he carries himself this way, he leads the family this way. Come back that way. Go over there and don't do foolishness, don't drink alcohol, don't wear your hat backward, don't pull your pants down,' all that stuff."

"It was a big move," Maker says. "I knew how important it was. And I couldn't fail those people. … I had to carry myself a certain way."

In Dinka, the name Maker is pronounced muh-KEHR—with a subtle roll of the "r"—not the Americanized may-kur that has become common since his arrival. He's happy to provide the proper pronunciation when asked, but he quickly demurs, saying, "You don't have to change anything. It's all good."

Photo by Sara Stathas for B/R Mag

Growing up, Maker knew little of the chaos engulfing his home country. He felt its effects more recently, however, when President Donald Trump temporarily banned entry to the United States from seven countries, including Sudan.

The day the ban went into effect, Maker was in Toronto for a game against the Raptors. NBA officials initially worried that Maker might be impacted, but he travels on an Australian passport and was therefore free to return to the United States. The administration later issued a clarification saying all dual-citizens like Maker are free to come and go.

As a child, Maker's first love was soccer. Basketball came later and was never a serious pursuit, until 2010. That's when he met Edward Smith, founder of the Next Level Basketball academy in Sydney, who was coaching two of Maker's cousins.

By then, Maker was a rail-thin 6'7"—his cousins called him "Long Body"—with only rudimentary skills and whatever moves he could copy from his idol, Kobe Bryant, who he had watched on television.

Smith came to scout a handful of more established kids. Then he saw Maker, flinging odd two-handed jumpers that sometimes went in and sometimes hit the side of the backboard.

"One of the worst players in the gym," Smith says in a telephone interview. Maker's jumper "could be all over the place. But when he shot it, he shot it as if he was Steph Curry."

That spoke to a more important quality: confidence. Or as Smith calls it, "a belief system."

As the scrimmage unfolded, Smith only became more convinced, watching Maker battle on every possession.





Photo by Sara Stathas for B/R Mag

"When you're playing pickup ball, and a guy's taking it so serious as if it's life or death, then you know you got a winner," Smith says. "All these guys thought I was coming over there to see them. And then I left with him."

Maker was initially hesitant to move more than 2,000 miles across Australia for the sake of basketball. He remembered the words of all those well-wishers back in Sudan.

"I was like, 'No, I want to do academics because that's what my dad wants me to do, that's what my mom wants me to do," he says. "And [Smith] is like, 'Well, in the U.S. you can do that. You can do academics, and you can do basketball also. And I believe you can make it to the NBA.'"

The family agreed to let Maker move to Sydney and to give Smith guardianship. Thus began a dizzying basketball journey that would take him to Metairie, Louisiana; Martinsville, Virginia; and, finally, Orangeville, Ontario, where Maker would play for the Athlete Institute while attending a nearby secondary school. Smith accompanied him throughout.

That slick ball-handling? The killer crossover that left the kid in Vegas stumbling backward? It all began with Smith's dribbling drills back in Sydney. Though Maker was already tall for his age, Smith was determined to train him like a guard, to give him the versatility needed in a rapidly evolving game. Also, if he could create his own shots, he wouldn't have to depend on teammates to pass him the ball.

Not that Maker needed much nudging on the subject.

"I wanted to be a guard," Maker says. "I wanted to be 6'8" and stay there."

He laughs.

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Photo by Sara Stathas for B/R Mag

How do you raise an NBA star? Start with a full refrigerator. A large one.

When the Bucks are home, Maker starts his day in the team kitchen, where chef and dietician Shawn Zell feeds him a four-egg omelet, oatmeal and a protein bar, plus white potatoes or hash browns or sweet potatoes.

Two hours later, just before practice, Zell will hand Maker another protein bar and a smoothie. For lunch, a big plate of pasta and two fistful servings of meat. Dinners vary—some protein, some starch, some veggies—and Maker always takes three to four servings.

"He kills our food budget," Zell says, "but he's a pleasure to work with."

The average male in his early 20s consumes about 2,000 calories a day. Maker routinely downs 6,000 to 7,000, more than the offensive linemen Zell used to feed when he worked for the then-St. Louis Rams.

It's not that the Bucks are trying to turn Maker into Shaquille O'Neal; he just burns an incredible amount of energy—"one of the fastest metabolisms I've ever seen," Zell says—and the staff is just trying to keep him fueled.

Maker has the highest aerobic capacity of any Bucks player—which means, if you lined them up and ran them to exhaustion, he would outlast them all.

"Which is a really good sign," says Troy Flanagan, the Bucks' director of performance. "Because if you're bulking somebody up, they have to have that sort of engine to carry the extra mass. Some people you put on extra mass, and it essentially deteriorates their performance. But he's definitely not in that category."