Naji Marshall

About

Naji Maurice Marshall ( NAH-zhee; born January 24, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Xavier Musketeers. After going undrafted in the 2020 NBA draft, Marshall signed with the New Orleans Pelicans. He played for the Pelicans for four years before signing with the Mavericks as a free agent in 2024.

Marshall was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey but moved to Maryland at the age of 9. He is the son of Maurice Marshall, who was a professional boxer and is now a basketball coach at an elementary school, and Rayna Whitted, who works at Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C. His name means “strong warrior” in Arabic and was a nickname of his father’s. Marshall has five brothers and one sister and grew up playing football and basketball. In middle school, he played in Atlantic City’s Triple-B summer youth league.
He played his first season of high school basketball at Takoma Academy. As a sophomore, he transferred to Eleanor Roosevelt High School to play under coach Brendan O’Connell but was academically ineligible his first year. As a senior, Marshall…