Malik Pope


Malik Pope is an American professional basketball player for the Rostock Seawolves of the German ProA league. Before he joined Rostock, he played for Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the San Diego State Aztecs.

Early life

Pope is a native of Sacramento and played for Laguna Creek High School He measured 6'3 as a high school sophomore and 6'8 as a junior, crediting his growth spurt in part to drinking more milk. In 2012, while doing some drills, Pope broke his left leg. Several months later, he broke it again and tore his meniscus, causing him to miss his entire senior season of high school. Even so, he was a 5 star recruit in the class of 2014 who committed and played for San Diego State.

College career

Pope had a career high 22 points and seven rebounds in a game against Colorado State as a freshman, sending his name up NBA Draft boards. As a sophomore at San Diego State, he averaged 7.3 points and 5.0 rebounds per game. He increased those numbers to 12.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in March 2016 as he led the Aztecs to the NIT finals. Following the season he declared for the 2016 NBA draft but did not hire an agent.
Pope had an injury-riddled junior campaign and missed nine games. He still managed to average 11 points per game. As a senior, Pope was named to the Second Team All-Mountain West Conference. He was suspended on February 23, 2018 for allegedly receiving a $1400 loan from an agent, according to an FBI investigation. Pope was cleared to return to the team on February 28. He averaged 12.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.1 blocked shots per game, shooting 52.1 percent from the floor and 36.8 percent from 3-point range. Pope led San Diego State to an NCAA Tournament berth as an 11 seed after winning the conference tournament.

Professional career

Pope joined the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2018 NBA Summer League. On August 10, 2018, Pope officially started his professional career by signing with Greek team PAOK.
On January 13, 2019, Pope signed with the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League.