The South Sudan men's basketball team has already made history at its first Olympic Games, and it'll look to make a lot more when it takes on the U.S. in the second game of group play on Wednesday, July 31. With a roster featuring several current and former NBA players — from stars Carlik Jones and Wenyen Gabriel to names like Peter Jok, JT Thor and Marial Shayok — this is not a team to be underestimated, as it showed in taking Team USA to the brink in an exhibition a couple of weeks ago.

But the brightest — and the tallest — of all the Bright Stars has yet to even reach college yet; heck, he's not even of drinking age. His name is Khaman Maluach, he's 7-foot-2, he just started playing basketball four years ago, and there's a good chance he'll be a household name in the United States in a few months time.

Who is Khaman Maluach?

Born in South Sudan, civil war drove Maluach, his mother and his brothers to neighboring Uganda when he was quite young. As he told The Athletic's Joe Vardon, he never gave much thought to basketball while growing up, instead focusing mostly on soccer.

But Maluach just kept growing, and growing, and growing, standing 6-foot-7 by the time he was 13. That got him noticed by former NBA star Luol Deng, a native of what is now South Sudan and currently the president of the country's basketball association.

Deng invited Maluach to a basketball camp, and soon enough he was hooked, learning the game by watching YouTube videos of his favorite players: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant and Joel Embiid; all Olympians themselves, and all 7-footers with the sort of versatile skill sets that Maluach aspired to.

Deng put Maluach on the radar, and it wasn't long before NBA scouts took notice of the 7-foot teenager with a freakish aptitude for the game. When Maluach was just 14, he enrolled at NBA Academy Africa, the youngest player to ever join an NBA Academy school — younger even than top-10 picks and Academy products like Josh Giddey, Dyson Daniels and Bennedict Mathurin. 

From there, Maluach's game advanced by leaps and bounds. He was no longer just a big body; he was mobile and smooth, with a genuinely functional 3-point shot in addition to a full back-to-the-basket game.

He became a five-star prospect, with offers from UCLA, Kentucky, Kansas and just about every blueblood in America. He decided to take his talents to Duke, where he'll join No. 1 overall prospect Cooper Flagg as part of a terrifying frontcourt in Durham next year.  

Before then, though, he's got a country to play for. Maluach was good enough to make South Sudan's FIBA World Cup team last summer, helping the Bright Stars punch their ticket to their first-ever Olympic Games at just 16 years old — the youngest player ever to compete in the tournament. And now he's a key part of the squad in Paris; look at him facing up one of his idols, Joel Embiid, just a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe Maluach and South Sudan will be overmatched against the U.S. on Wednesday. Maybe this is too much to ask, too soon. But given the growth of this player and this country's basketball program in such a short amount of time, the arrow is only pointing up.