Brady Reece Manek (born September 4, 1998) is an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player for Leones de Ponce of

Baloncesto Superior Nacional The Baloncesto Superior Nacional, abbreviated as BSN, is the first-tier-level professional men's basketball list of basketball leagues, league in Puerto Rico. It was founded in 1929 and is organized by the Puerto Rican Basketball Federation. T ...

, on loan from Žalgiris Kaunas. He played

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

for the

Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the college athletics in the United States , athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman, Oklahoma, Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to ...

and the

North Carolina Tar Heels The North Carolina Tar Heels (also Carolina Tar Heels) are the college sports in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to ...

Early life

Manek was born and raised in

Edmond, Oklahoma Edmond is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States. It is a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, located in Central Oklahoma. Its population was 94,428 according to the 2020 United States census, a 16% increase from 2010. maki ...

and started playing basketball from a young age against older competition. He often played against future college teammate

Trae Young Rayford Trae Young (born September 19, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Oklahoma Sooners, where in his one season in 201 ...

while attending elementary school. His family moved to

Harrah, Oklahoma Harrah is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Located east of downtown Oklahoma City, Harrah had a population of 6,245 people as of the 2020 Census, a 22.6% increase from 2010. ...

, where he began playing varsity basketball for Harrah High School in his freshman season. Between his freshman and sophomore years, Manek greatly improved his dunking ability. He was named Little All-City Player of the Year by ''

The Oklahoman ''The Oklahoman'' is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circul ...

'' in each of his final two seasons. As a senior, Manek averaged 24.3 points and 11.6 rebounds, leading Harrah to the state quarterfinals. Rated either a three-star and four-star recruit by several services, he committed to play

for

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

after his sophomore season of high school.

College career

Oklahoma

As a freshman at Oklahoma, Manek averaged 10.2 points and 5.2 rebounds per game in 32 appearances. He and

were the highest scoring freshman duo in the

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

. Manek recorded 59 three-pointers, the fourth-most by a freshman in school history. In his sophomore season, he made national headlines for his resemblance to

Larry Bird Larry Joe Bird (born December 7, 1956) is an American former professional basketball player, coach, and executive in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "the Hick from French Lick" and "Larry Legend" Bird is widely regarded a ...

. He averaged 12.2 points and 5.9 rebounds per game as a sophomore and was an All-

Big 12 The Big 12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities (3 private universities and 13 public universities) in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Okla ...

Honorable Mention selection. On January 18, 2020, Manek scored a career-high 31 points and seven three-pointers, while reaching 1,000 career points, in an 83–63 win over

TCU TCU may stand for: Education * Tanzania Commission for Universities, regulatory body for Universities in Tanzania * Texas Christian University, a private university in Fort Worth, Texas ** TCU Horned Frogs, the athletic programs of the school * Tok ...

. Manek scored 30 points on February 1, in an 82–69 victory over

Oklahoma State Oklahoma State University (informally Oklahoma State or OSU) is a public land-grant research university in Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States. The university was established in 1890 under the legislation of the Morrill Act. Originally known ...

. As a junior, he averaged 14.4 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game, earning Third Team All-Big 12 honors. In his senior season, Manek averaged 10.8 points and five rebounds per game. Following the season, he transferred to

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

North Carolina

After four years at Oklahoma, Manek transferred to North Carolina as a graduate student. He took advantage of the extra year of NCAA eligibility granted in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

to play in Chapel Hill. After being used primarily as the sixth man for the first part of the season, Manek was inserted to the starting lineup following an injury to

Dawson Garcia Dawson Lee Garcia (born September 20, 2001) is an American college basketball player for the Minnesota Golden Gophers of the Big Ten Conference. He previously played for the Marquette Golden Eagles and the North Carolina Tar Heels. High school ca ...

. Manek's elevation to the starting five coincided with a turnaround in the Tar Heels' fortunes, as the team was able to play their way to a tie for second place in the ACC regular season standings and the third seed in the conference's

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...

. He scored 20 points in the Tar Heels' 94–81 victory in the regular-season finale against

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

. Following the regular season, Manek was named Honorable Mention All-ACC. In the first round of the NCAA tournament against Marquette, Manek scored a season-high 28 points, three shy of his career high. He scored 26 points in just 28 minutes of action against Baylor in the second round of the tournament. Manek was ejected from the game following a flagrant 2 foul on Baylor's

Jeremy Sochan Jeremy Juliusz Sochan ( ; born May 20, 2003) is a Polish-American professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Poland national team. Born in the United States to a Polish mother and a ...

. At the time, the Tar Heels held a 25-point lead. Following the ejection, Baylor was able to come back and force overtime, but the Tar Heels held on and advanced to the Sweet 16, 93–86. On April 1, 2022, Manek was named as the recipient of the Riley Wallace Player of the Year Award, given to the top transfer player in college basketball.

Professional career

After going undrafted in the

2022 NBA draft The 2022 NBA draft (branded as the 2022 NBA Draft presented by State Farm for sponsorship reasons), the 76th edition of the National Basketball Association's annual NBA draft, draft, was held on June 23, 2022, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New ...

, Manek joined the

Charlotte Hornets The Charlotte Hornets are an American professional basketball team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Hornets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference. The team ...

for the

2022 NBA Summer League The 2022 NBA Summer League, also branded as the NBA 2K23 Summer League 2022, was an off-season competition held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) primarily at the Thomas and Mack Center and Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas, Nevada on the cam ...

. On August 1, 2022, he signed with the

Perth Wildcats The Perth Wildcats are an Australian professional basketball team based in Perth, Western Australia. The Wildcats compete in the National Basketball League (Australia), National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home games at Perth Arena, ...

in Australia for the

2022–23 NBL season The 2022–23 NBL season was the 45th season of the National Basketball League since its establishment in 1979. A total of ten teams contested in the 2022–23 season. Australian broadcast rights to the season are held by ESPN in the second sea ...

. On February 24, 2023, Manek signed with

Tofaş TOFAŞ Türk Otomobil Fabrikası A.Ş (acronym for ''Türk Otomobil Fabrikası Anonim Şirketi''; ''Turkish Automobile Factory Joint-Stock Company'' pronounced ) is a Turkish automobile manufacturer which was established in 1968 by Vehbi Koç, ...

of the

Basketbol Süper Ligi The Basketball Super League (; TBSL), also known as the Türkiye Sigorta Basketbol Süper Ligi for sponsorship reasons, is the top men's professional basketball division of the Turkish basketball league system. It replaced the former Turkish Bas ...

(BSL). On July 21, 2023, Manek signed a two-year (1+1) deal with Žalgiris Kaunas of the

Lithuanian Basketball League Lithuanian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Lithuania, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe ** Lithuanian language ** Lithuanians, a Baltic ethnic group, native to Lithuania and the immediate geographical region ** L ...

(LKL) and the

EuroLeague The EuroLeague is a European men's professional basketball club competition. The league is widely recognised as the top-tier and the most prestigious men's basketball league in Europe. The league consists of 20 teams, of which 16 are given lon ...

. In September 2024, Manek suffered an ankle injury during practice which would have him sidelined for a few weeks. Manek fell out of the rotation in his second season, averaging less than nine minutes of action in the EuroLeague. On April 18, 2025, he was loaned to

Mersin MSK Mersin MSK is a Turkish professional basketball club based in Mersin. Founded in 2019, the club currently competes in the Basketbol Süper Ligi, the top-tier basketball league in Turkey. History After the dissolution of Mersin BB in 2018, Mersin ...

of the

(BSL) for the remainder of the season. On June 10, 2025, he signed with Leones de Ponce of

Career statistics

EuroLeague

, - , style="text-align:left;", 2023–24 , style="text-align:left;", Žalgiris , 28 , , 6 , , 18.9 , , .425 , , .407 , , .789 , , 3.4 , , .6 , , .6 , , .1 , , 7.5 , , 6.9 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan=2, Career , 28 , , 6 , , 18.9 , , .425 , , .407 , , .789 , , 3.4 , , .6 , , .6 , , .1 , , 7.5 , , 6.9

College

, - , style="text-align:left;", 2017–18 , style="text-align:left;",

, , 32 , , 26 , , 23.7 , , .466 , , .383 , , .600 , , 5.2 , , .5 , , .3 , , .7 , , 10.2 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2018–19 , style="text-align:left;",

, , 34 , , 34 , , 27.8 , , .469 , , .358 , , .764 , , 5.9 , , .8 , , .7 , , .7 , , 12.2 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2019–20 , style="text-align:left;",

, , 31 , , 31 , , 30.5 , , .453 , , .380 , , .779 , , 6.2 , , .9 , , .5 , , 1.2 , , 14.4 , - , style="text-align:left;",

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

, style="text-align:left;",

, , 25 , , 20 , , 25.1 , , .422 , , .375 , , .767 , , 5.0 , , .8 , , .5 , , .8 , , 10.8 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2021–22 , style="text-align:left;",

, , 39 , , 27 , , 30.4 , , .493 , , .403 , , .697 , , 6.1 , , 1.8 , , .6 , , .7 , , 15.1 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , , 161 , , 138 , , 27.7 , , .465 , , .382 , , .733 , , 5.7 , , 1.0 , , .5 , , .8 , , 12.7

Personal life

Manek's older brother, Kellen, was his basketball teammate at Harrah High School for three years and played for

Oral Roberts Granville Oral Roberts (January 24, 1918 – December 15, 2009) was an American Charismatic Christianity, Charismatic Christianity, Christian televangelist, who was one of the first to propagate Prosperity theology, Prosperity Gospel Theo ...

and Southeastern Oklahoma State.

References

External links

NBL profileNorth Carolina Tar Heels bioOklahoma Sooners bioEuroLeague profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manek, Brady 1998 births Living people 21st-century American sportsmen American expatriate basketball people in Australia American expatriate basketball people in Lithuania American expatriate basketball people in Turkey American men's basketball players Basketball players from Oklahoma BC Žalgiris players Mersin MSK players North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball players Oklahoma Sooners men's basketball players Perth Wildcats players Power forwards Small forwards Sportspeople from Edmond, Oklahoma Tofaş S.K. players