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NBA helping Khaman Maluach navigate legal situation amid State Department action against South Sudanese citizens
On April 5, hours before the Blue Devils lost in the national semifinals of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and nearly three months before the NBA draft, that future appeared in flux. All visas held by South Sudanese passport holders were being revoked, the State Department announced. Questions immediately arose about whether Khaman Maluach would be eligible to be selected. But thanks to a little-known division of the NBA few have heard of, he’s set to walk across the Barclays Center stage in Brooklyn, New York, on Wednesday night.
At each stop, the NBA’s international operations team worked to smooth his travel from one country to the next, just as it does with all of its international players. That work continued this spring after the State Department’s action against South Sudan, as Maluach stayed in the United States to train ahead of the draft. “We’ve been on this journey ... with Khaman since age 14, and we’re going to continue on this journey with him through the rest of his career, and we’ll continue on this journey with him post his career,” Troy Justice, the NBA’s senior vice president and head of international basketball, said. “These are lifelong commitments that we make to all of our international players.”
As Maluach’s lone season at Duke ended, the NBA began paperwork for him to receive a B-1/B-2 business tourist visa, which is pending, according to the league. Should Maluach be drafted Wednesday or Thursday as expected, the NBA will begin the process of acquiring either a P-1 visa — the typical professional athlete visa for the United States — or the Canadian version if he is drafted by the Toronto Raptors.
The roar of cheers and chants could be heard outside Gainbridge Fieldhouse just before NBA final Game 3 between the Pacers and Thunder the evening of June 11, but it wasn't the sound of Pacers fans. It was people gathered to protest ICE raids in Indiana — the latest to spring up across the country since such protests began in Los Angeles amid increased ICE activity under President Donald Trump.
Downtown Indy resident Jaqueline Montez, 30, said it was important to her to protest now rather than waiting for planned No Kings Day protests here and elsewhere June 14. “We’re being seen by the rest of the world,” Montez said. “We’re being noticed today.” The demonstration remained nonviolent, and one speaker reminded demonstrators not to antagonize the police.
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Marco Foster:HAPPENING NOW: Protesters have gathered in Indianapolis, Indiana across the street from the Pacers arena for a protest against Donald Trump and ICE (Video: @noepadilla.bsky.social )
NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spoke to graduating students at Harvard University on May 28, telling the new graduates to "take a stand,: Abdul-Jabbar's speech came as Harvard continues to battle President Donald Trump's administration's efforts to revoke international student enrollment at the school. "During the many records I set and a whole lot of championship rings, my achievements as a basketball player were unrelated to my main goal: To be as successful as I could as a member of the Black community, as an American, and as a human being," Abdul-Jabbar said.
"When a tyrannical administration tried to bully and threaten Harvard to give up their academic freedom and destroy free speech, Dr. Alan Garber rejected the illegal and immoral pressures the way Rosa Parks defied the entire weight of systemic racism in 1955," Abdul-Jabbar said to the applause of the Harvard crowd.
The garbage, in his words, is the recycled spectacle of American electoral politics. Whether it’s Trump or Biden, Obama or Bush, Hodges believes the real decision-makers wear tailored suits on Wall Street — not the White House. “To me, Trump and Biden? It’s a uniparty. Two wings of the same bird,” Hodges said. “And the bird don’t fly for us.” That’s not a new theme in his rhetoric. He’s been speaking this truth since his NBA days — when he tried to organize players into a collective consciousness of activism and economic self-determination. Now, in 2025, with disinformation rampant and trust in institutions crumbling, Hodges feels vindicated. “We’ve been losing jobs since we’ve been in America, shit!” he says, voice rising. “When we were fully employed, y’all didn’t have a problem with us — because we were totally enslaved.”
His frustration extends to the Democratic establishment — especially President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. “They won’t step up to the plate and say that this dude is incompetent from Day 1,” Hodges said of Biden. “We can’t say that because it’s ‘politically incorrect.’ And then you wanna give me Kamala Harris? Nah, man.” He doesn’t blame the system for being what it is. He blames us — for still expecting it to save us. “We didn’t say Democrats and Republicans we want y’all to sit down and listen to what we need over here… but we ain’t unified like that.” Unity, for Hodges, is the missing piece. It’s not about waiting for another Barack or denouncing another Trump. It’s about organization, ownership, and truth-telling. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially when it is. “It’s a game, man,” Hodges said one more time, with a sigh. “And I hope we can see where we sit — because it’s getting ready to get REALLY hectic.”
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For Hodges, the American economy has never been for Black folks. From slavery to sharecropping, from redlining to underfunded schools, he sees a nation addicted to Black labor — and allergic to Black power. So when Trump sat with billionaires and signed executive orders, Hodges didn’t flinch. He just asked, “Why didn’t Barack do the same for us?” “I ain’t saying I support Trump,” Hodges clarified. “I’m saying look at what he’s allowed to do — because of who he answers to. It’s billionaires sitting around the table with him, man!” That’s the deeper wound for Hodges. Not just that power is corrupt, but that even so-called “Black excellence” hasn’t figured out how to truly claim it. “You look at where the money lies and everyone knows. Everyone is afraid,” he said. “If we were to be organized, we would have a political faction, a financial establishment, a generation of young men and women who are capable of being politically powerful.”
“You all have had quite a cozy relationship with the [Chinese Communist Party],” Blackburn said, pressing Koeing on whether the NBA cut a deal or conceded on the free speech front to shore up their financial interests in China. “Senator, I can certainly confirm that one of the NBA’s most important values is freedom of speech,” Koeing said. “In fact, the example you cited before of Daryl Morey, he was not disciplined or censored in any way in light of the comments that he made .” As for the hearing itself, not much ground was covered, and most of the senators on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee — including Sens. John Fetterman (D., Pa), Andy Kim (D., N.J.) and Lisa Blount Rochester (D., Del.) — were no-shows. A handful of senators used their time to pontificate about the Trump administration’s plans to defund PBS and NPR.
Dallas Mavericks owner Miriam Adelson gave $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, according to a recent FEC filing, one of at least a dozen sports owners and sports companies that donated to the celebration marking Trump’s return to the White House.
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