The tale of 76ers rookie hopeful Marial Shayok is a sweeping epic that opened in Ottawa (though its back story can be traced to the African nation of Sudan) and has featured episodes in such far-flung places as Blairstown, N.J., Charlottesville, Va., and Ames, Iowa.
Marial Shayok, shown in the preseason, is off to a hot start with the Sixers' G-League affiliate. ... [+]
Its latest installment finds Shayok, a 6-5 wing chosen in the second round of the draft last June (No. 54 overall), plying his trade for the Sixers’ G-League affiliate, the Delaware Blue Coats, in Wilmington, Del. Meaning that he is honing his skills with and against other NBA wannabes, at a salary of a little under $80,000 (as he is on a two-way contract, meaning he can be on the parent club’s roster no more than 45 days this season).
As he and his teammates were warming up before Tuesday night’s home game against Raptors 905 (Toronto’s farm club), a career fair was in full swing just beyond the baseline at one end of the court. The candidates who had gathered, wearing business attire and earnest expressions, were clearly most interested in one potential employer above all the others on hand — the Sixers. The line to meet with the two young men from the team’s sales department stretched beyond the tables that had been set up for places like Kutztown (Pa.) University, Columbia University and a Camden-based minor league team, all the way out to the Chick-fil-A stand in the arena’s lobby.
The aspirations of those on the court differed little from those queued up next to it. And certainly Shayok has been busy sprucing up his resume. He started off the season by averaging 35 points over his first three games, including a 42-point explosion against Greensboro, and was named G-League Player of the Week. While a quad injury and a two-day call-up to the Sixers (in which he saw no action) cost him four games, he returned last Sunday and put up 24 points off the bench, leaving his per-game average at 28.4 entering the meeting with the Raptors.
“I think he clearly has a natural scoring ability, that he can score from anywhere on the court,” Delaware coach Connor Johnson said. “He’s confident as a scorer. He’s got a great shooting stroke.”
That has been duly noted by opponents. The Raptors, for instance, trapped him off every high screen, a defensive approach usually reserved for the biggest of NBA stars, which was at least part of the reason he settled for 16 points on 5-for-13 shooting (again in a reserve role) in a 115-106 Blue Coats victory. He also turned the ball over four times in nearly 29 minutes of action.
All of which underscores some points Johnson made before the game: While Shayok will get minutes and shots for the Blue Coats, that will not be the case if and when he is called up to the Sixers. He will need to be more efficient, need to let the offense come to him.
“He can’t take five dribbles and step back to score every time,” Johnson said. “He’s got to score off the catch, make quick decisions, keep the ball moving, because that’s what they’re going to want to see when he eventually gets up with the Sixers.”
Johnson’s other mission, with Shayok and others, is to temper expectations — to make sure they remain patient and tend to the task at hand. Everybody on the Coats’ roster wants to be in the NBA, but getting there is, shall we say, a process.
“He has a mature approach to all this,” Johnson said. “I think he kind of sees it in a good way.”
Shayok is, after all, 24, meaning he is older than four players currently on the Sixers’ roster, including Ben Simmons. Shayok is also a rarity in that he spent five full years in college — three at Virginia (in, yes, Charlottesville) and two at Iowa State (in, yes, Ames), one of which he had to sit out after transferring.
So yeah, it would appear he gets it.
“I just try to approach it, taking a day at a time, try to win the day, continue to get better, on and off the court — keeping my mental (approach) in the right place, making sure I’m talking to myself in the right way and staying positive,” he said. “It can be challenging at times, for sure — definitely, for sure. But I’m trying to enjoy it, and so far I have.”
He is the youngest of five children born to Makur and Hellena Shayok, who are of Sudanese descent. Makur (whose name was spelled Makor at the time) took up organized basketball only after coming to the states from Khartoum in 1986 at the behest of fellow Dinka tribesman Manute Bol, who spent part of his decade-long NBA career with the Sixers. (Bol died in 2010, at age 47.)
Specifically Makur, who stands 6-9, landed at Alvin (Texas) Junior College, learning to speak English from his roommates and by watching TV, and learning the game in part by scrimmaging with the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon.He later wound up at Dayton, playing for current Sixers assistant Jim O’Brien and leading the Flyers in rebounding each of his two seasons there. He and Hellena had four children by then — older daughters Akuluel, Lau and Yar, and a son, Shayok. Marial arrived after the family settled in Ottawa.
“It was,” he said, “a basketball family.”
Quite so. Akuluel and Lau played the sport (as well as volleyball) in high school, and Yar and Shayok took it a step or two further. Yar scored 1,230 points at Detroit Mercy, then played in France. Shayok played at Bradley and Missouri-Kansas City, and now hopes to continue his professional career after seeing his time with a team in Brazil cut short as a result of a shoulder injury.
As for Marial, he played high school ball in Ottawa, then at Blairstown (N.J.) Academy before initially committing to Marquette. A flip to Virginia followed, and he averaged 5.7 points in 103 games over three years with the Cavaliers. Yet he wanted something more. He wanted to “kind of show what I can do, offensively,” as he told the Des Moines Register in January 2018. Hence his transfer.
His average swelled to 18.7 and he was named All-Big 12 last season, then earned conference tournament MVP honors after the Cyclones upset Kansas in the title game. He also caught scouts’ attention when he poured in 37 points in a game in the Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational Tournament, a talent showcase for borderline prospects.
After his selection by the Sixers, he displayed his scoring touch once more in the Las Vegas Summer League (14.5 ppg). Things didn’t go nearly as well in the preseason — he was 3-for-13 from the floor in sporadic minutes — leaving him at a new point in his sweeping epic. And wondering just how the plot might unfold from here.
