The Dallas Mavericks' Tobi Lawal owns one of the best verticals in combine history, but his coaches and teammates say his game goes well beyond athleticism.
DALLAS - Tobi Lawal spent most of his childhood in London playing soccer and running track, not basketball.
He didn't pick up a basketball until his friends talked him into trying out at 16, after he'd grown from 5-foot-9 at 12 years old to 6-foot-5. Less than three weeks removed from the 2026 NBA Draft, he's already signed a two-way contract with the Dallas Mavericks and is set for his first Summer League game Thursday against the Golden State Warriors.
His path to that contract started at the City of London Academy, where it didn't take long for word to spread about the new kid on the roster.
"My first year playing basketball at the academy in England, the person that runs the place sent my tape out," Lawal said. "I didn't know. I had no idea. He sent my tape out and someone reached back out and said we would love to bring him to prep school [in the United States]. So, when he brought me into the office and he was telling me this, I was kind of confused because I didn't know what that was. And I'd never left England before, so I was definitely kind of scared."
That tape led him to Lee Academy in Lee, Maine, where he spent eight months during the 2021-22 season and averaged 14.5 points, 11.4 rebounds, and 3 blocks, numbers that came in what was still just his third year of organized basketball.
"It was definitely a great experience for someone like me because I'm really focused, I don't really get distracted that much," Lawal said. "So just being in a very intense area where it's just school and basketball, it was great for me."
From Maine, Lawal spent two seasons at VCU before transferring to Virginia Tech, where he became a full-time starter. He averaged 12.4 points and 7.0 rebounds as a junior in 2024-25, then improved to 12.3 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks as a senior while shooting 54.2% from the field. He is the younger brother of Gani Lawal, a former Georgia Tech forward who was also a second-round NBA pick, in 2010.
Dallas made Lawal the 48th overall pick in last month's NBA Draft, a moment he said produced more emotion from his mother than from him.
"I feel like the thing I'll remember the most [from the night of the draft] is my mother's reaction," Lawal said. "I didn't even see it at first. I had to go back and look, because they made a post about it. But it was definitely very emotional. I'm happy that my mother was proud, because she was crying. It's definitely a dream come true. Glory to God."
Part of what got Lawal drafted became clear at the pre-draft combine in May. The 6-foot-8, 214-pound forward posted a 45.5-inch max vertical leap, tied for the second-highest mark in the event's history, to go with a 40-inch no-step vertical that also led this year's class. He had topped even that number once before, during pre-draft testing at VCU, when he measured a 49.5-inch vertical leap.
Mavericks guard John Poulakidas, who has practiced alongside Lawal for two days at Summer League camp, said he isn't sure anyone in the league can match it.
"I don't know if there are many people in the league right now as it currently stands that can out-jump that dude," Poulakidas said. "He's a freak of nature for sure."
Lawal has heard versions of that description plenty of times, though he said it still catches him off guard.
"For me, it's hard for me to see because that's kind of what I do. That's the gift God blessed me with," Lawal said. "But when other people react, it's like OK, sometimes I start to understand that maybe I'm like a cut above the rest in certain aspects of the game."
Joe Boylan, who is coaching the Mavericks' Summer League team, said the athleticism is only part of what has stood out through two days of practice.
"He's very vocal, he's really supportive of his teammates, and he's a super hard worker," Boylan said. "You get a player like that, especially somebody like me that loves development, it really makes you excited, because he's going to exhaust every possible option to make himself a player."
Dallas signed Lawal to a two-way contract on Friday, July 3. The deal will pay him $679,000 this season, doesn't count against the salary cap, and allows him to appear in up to 50 games with the Mavericks as a rookie. Boylan said he expects Lawal to push the rest of Dallas' Summer League group.
"I think he raises the level of other people," Boylan said. "Yeah, I'm excited to work with him and I think he's got a lot of potential."
Lawal and the Mavericks open Summer League play Thursday at 6 p.m. against the Warriors at the Thomas & Mack Center, and he already has an idea of what he wants Dallas to show right away.
"We're going to be the hardest playing team on defense and the best positive team on offense," Lawal said. "Coach wants us to be able to move the ball, get everybody touches, and play fast, too. So, I feel like you're definitely going to see a lot of energy, a lot of multiple efforts, and just intensity throughout the whole Summer League."
Lawal credits the friends who pushed him toward basketball in the first place for setting all of it in motion.
"I didn't really want to [play basketball] at first, but obviously I'm going to enjoy something if my friends are there," Lawal said. "I'm a big growth person, so if I can grow in my faith as a person and as a player, then I'm happy. Basketball can teach you so many life lessons, because I'm a man of faith. That kind of goes hand-in-hand."
