The Thon Maker Age Mystery; Did Bucks Make Mistake?

Will the real Thon Maker please stand up?  With controversy surrounding his real age swirling, did the Milwaukee Bucks make a colossal error by drafting the young (or not so young) prospect out of high school?

The Milwaukee Bucks love their length.  And they also love to buck — pun intended — the trend.

They demonstrated as such in 2013 when they drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo, a gamble that has thus far paid off.

The successful roll of the dice gave Bucks general manager John Hammond the credence to once again take a chance on another man of mystery —  another man of length and potential — as after all, if the Cleveland Cavaliers can come back from a 3-1 deficit against one of the greatest teams of all-time, lightning can also strike twice, right?

Thus, with the 10th pick of the 2016 draft, Milwaukee selected Thon Maker, a raw, gangly 19-year-old specimen with some of the most eye-popping measurables for a big in recent memory.

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The selection came as a surprise to many, however, as Maker was slated as a second-round pick by most media outlets.  But the Bucks fell in love with his 7’1″ frame, his 7’3″ wingspan and his 36.5-inch max vertical leap (only matched by DeAndre Jordan for players 6’11” and taller).

In addition, Milwaukee viewed the selection as an opportunity to mold a player that had only been playing organized basketball for five years into the anchor of their positionless army.

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With Giannis Antetokounmpo running the point and

and

roaming the wings, Thon’s potential versatility could serve as the final piece to their modern-day basketball puzzle.

But then this week happened.

Information regarding Maker’s real age has surfaced ever since the Bucks made Thon their man.  More specifically, the Internet investigators of various basketball forums unearthed several damning pictures that insinuate Thon is much older than his claimed age.

In a yearbook collage that features the graduating class of 2010, Maker is prominently featured in the bottom-left corner of the second page. If such is the case, that would make Thon at least 23-years-old — or a full four years older than his stated age.

The evidence would continue to mount over the last several days.  Here is a 2007 yearbook photo showing Thon as a ninth grader, with many of his same classmates shown in the 2010 yearbook posing alongside him.

Worse yet, an anonymous former classmate of Maker’s posted a video flipping through said yearbook, proving the legitimacy of the photo.

The nail in the coffin, however, arrived Wednesday in the form of a photo featuring Maker at his “year 12” graduation formal.

So, here is a rough timeline of Thon’s rise to draft day 2016:

2006-10: Thon Maker spent four years at Aranmore Catholic College in Perth, Australia.

2010-11: Thon spent some time playing in the St George Basketball Association after being “discovered by Ed Smith, his incumbent legal guardian.

2011-12: Thon repeated the eighth grade at Metairie Park Country Day in Metairie, La.

2012-14: Thon spent his freshmen and sophomore seasons of high school at Carlisle School in Martinsville, Va.

2014-16: Thon spent his second junior and senior years at the Athlete Institute in Ontario. Upon his graduation, he decides to stay another year at the school to train instead of playing in the NCAA or professionally overseas.

2016: The Bucks draft Thon Maker with the 10th pick of the 2016 NBA Draft.

Of course, even with all the empirical evidence we have on hand, we cannot be certain Thon actually lied about his age.

The first theory many “Maker is 19” advocates hang onto is that the Thon Maker featured in all of the above photos is not the same Thon Maker of your Milwaukee Bucks.  The theory, albeit a bit far-fetched, does have its legs.

For one, in most of the photos featuring Maker on Aranmore’s sports teams, he seems to be of average height, and not the towering 7-foot giant he is now.

However, Smith has pretty much squashed such inclinations when he admitted to Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress that the photo featured in the 2010 yearbook is indeed Maker, but was taken of him graduating in an English school and not a high school.

Which leads us to the next theory: Maker attended Aranmore exclusively for its ESL-intensive program.  However, the said theory loses ground when our favorite Internet investigators of Reddit discovered that one of his classmates is now an established English scholar.

Moreover, in an archived web page found on Aranmore’s official site, it notes Thon as a “Year 9” student, and not an IEC (Intensive English Course) graduate.

On the other hand, over the past three years, Maker has matured physically like your typical adolescent in his late-teens.

According to his DraftExpress profile, since 2013, when he was 16 (or 20), Maker has grown — give or take — an inch in height, two inches in his wingpsan and has gained more than 20 pounds.

His physical maturation matches coherently with to the way a typical teen matures between the ages of 16 and 19.  And Givony, having watched Maker intimately since he first burst onto the scene in 2012, confirms such an insertion.

However, Maker could have just experienced a late growth spurt.

Just take a look at Joel Embiid, another migrant from a war-torn African country who has similarly grown into his early-20s.

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Whether it’s the malnourishment they suffered in their early adolescent years or just an inherent late-bloomer, there is no denying that Embiid, much like Thon,

has grown

upwards of an inch and gained more than 20 pounds since being drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers as a 20-year-old.

The question now becomes: so what?  What if he is 23 as opposed to 19; does it actually make a material difference?

Well, since the Bucks drafted Maker for what he could potentially become, age does matter in this case.  The development curve of a 19-year-old is drastically different to someone who is already 23.

But ultimately, the Thon Maker mystery will come down to whether or not he is good at basketball.  If he is the second coming of Kevin Garnett (which I am not saying he is), then all of his sins are forgotten.

The problem is if his game tape from the past several years is of any indication, he isn’t all that refined at the moment.  He gives a ton of effort, and has a motor to go along with his length, but he is often overthinking the game and is pretty much lost on both ends of the floor.

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The more pressing issue at hand is the Bucks management and their failure to conduct proper due diligence/background check on a prized lottery pick.

If the Thon Maker experiment does not work out, expect some serious repercussions, starting with the Bucks’ front office.