Malique Lewis – By Neto Baptiste
Malique Lewis Trinidadian Basketball
Trinidadian professional basketball player Malique Lewis, who was selected as 60th overall in the NBA Draft held in June, labelled the experience a ‘special moment’ adding that it was nerve-racking having to sit and wait for your name to be called.
“It was like a burst of excitement just hearing your name on TV, seeing it for yourself. It was just a special moment for me and my life. I knew like a couple of minutes before that I was going to get called, so it was just like a waiting game basically, waiting for a very long time actually because they kept going on a lot of breaks and stuff. So it was just nervous and not knowing if it was actually going to happen or not even though they told me it was. But yeah, it was just a surreal moment,” he said.
Lewis, who spoke on the Good Morning Jojo Sport Show on Thursday, was selected by the Washington Wizards during the June 24th draft but was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Director of Caribbean Hoops and former collegiate player, Johnathan Weekes, said Lewis and his family trusted the process and are now reaping the benefits of all their hard work and sacrifice.
“There was a lot of doubts, you know, a lot of failures to get to this point and it was worth it, so meeting Malique for the first time and sitting down with his mom, trying to convince his mother to send a minor with a stranger across the world, it takes a lot. All the respect to his mother: she sat down, she listened and she was like, okay, I understand the process, understand what it takes and she was willing to let me go with her son,” he said.
“I asked Malik, I said, Malik, what is it? What is your goal? You know, out of all this, and he said he wants to make it to the NBA. So now in my head, I process and I’m an analytical guy so I was like, there’s only 450 jobs in the NBA, only 5,000 people ever played in the NBA so his percentage is like 0.0001% chance of making it,” Weekes added.
Meanwhile, President of the Wadadli Elite basketball academy Byron Andrew, is hoping that Lewis’ achievement inspires other young players and administrators across the Caribbean. The Antiguan noted that his academy has been working with Weekes and his organisation for well over a decade.
“We’ve been working together now for the last 12 years. He has helped us in Antigua to recruit some of our players, coordinate contracts in Europe, in European basketball and also even at the college level so he’s been a partner of mine for many years. We’ve worked excellent together and Malique is just an offshoot of that working together because Malique’s success, I think is our success it’s the whole Caribbean’s success because he’s carrying now, the weight of the Caribbean on his shoulders to represent us well. So Malik is no stranger to Wadadli Elite, Jonathan is no stranger to Wadadli Elite,” he said.
Lewis, between 2024 and 2026, played for the South East Melbourne Phoenix of the Australian National Basketball League (NBL). He became an important piece for the Phoenix over the course of the 2024–25 season, becoming one of the premier defenders on the team. He scored a season-high 15 points in November 2024, and for the season averaged 6.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game.
