After being taken by the Bucks with the 60th pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, Malique Lewis is expected to reach a deal with the NBL’s Cairns Taipans for the upcoming season. Of course, Lewis knows the league well, having spent the last two seasons with the Southeast Melbourne Phoenix; last year, he averaged 6.9 PPG, 4.3 RPG, and 2.0 APG to go with nearly two stocks.
As I’ve mentioned, the 21-year-old made real strides last season and started to look at least vaguely like a player who one day might play in the NBA. He’s a three-and-D player who can’t do much else—which caps his ceiling—but if he does that role well, which he did, there might be a role for him. Lewis took a huge step back in Summer League—as we noted in our player grades—but hopefully he can reclaim some confidence in a league he knows well and come back next year looking much better.
Crucially, Lewis will now be classified as an import, not an NBL Next Star, which was his classification for the last two seasons; once a player is drafted, they can no longer hold the Next Star title. For those who don’t know, the Next Star program is an NBL initiative that lets NBA prospects bide their time in the NBL instead of college or other overseas opportunities. They do not count as imports, nor does their salary count against their team’s payroll. As we know, Lewis is not the only Buck to have gone through the program; Ousmane Dieng was a Next Star, as was ex-Buck AJ Johnson.
Best of luck, Malique.
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