A decision to go against his natural instincts may have saved the life of a champion Aussie sports star and administrator – and now he has a warning for all men about breast cancer.
Paul Maley has lived his life as a picture of health, first as an NBL basketball star and then as executive general manager of Basketball Australia.
The US-born basketballer began his college career at Yale, earning Ivy League Player of the Year honours in 1988 after averaging 20.2 points and 8.1 rebounds per game.
He then played professionally, starting in Ireland before becoming a standout import in Australia’s NBL from 1990 to 2001 with teams including the Westside Melbourne Saints, North Melbourne Giants, Victoria Titans and Adelaide 36ers.
Nicknamed ‘The Mailman,’ Maley helped lead the North Melbourne Giants to the 1994 NBL championship while averaging around 18 points and 8 rebounds per game in his career.
After retiring as a player, Paul Maley moved into basketball administration, eventually becoming Executive General Manager at Basketball Australia, overseeing the WNBL and national competitions.
After retiring, Paul Maley (pictured with his wife and son) became Basketball Australia’s Executive General Manager before undergoing treatment for male breast cancer
Maley played 11 NBL seasons from 1990 to 2001, representing multiple clubs and winning the 1994 NBL championship with the North Melbourne Giants
His daughter Anneli Maley is a standout professional basketball player, a WNBL MVP who also represents Australia in both traditional and 3×3 formats.
His son Finnbar Maley plays Australian Rules Football and made his AFL debut for North Melbourne in 2025, scoring a goal with his first kick.
However, Maley’s world was turned upside down when he was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023 – a shock given that it predominantly affects women.
‘We have a two and a half year-old, so part of what made this hard was when I got the diagnosis my youngest son was only six months old,’ he told News Corp.
‘And of course you can’t help but imagine, “S**t, am I gonna leave my wife to deal with our son on her own?”‘
He described receiving the news as coming with ‘a massive dose of shock and fear,’ and used the experience to caution other men against dismissing the chances of getting male breast cancer.
‘A bit more than two years ago I was lying in bed one night trying to get comfortable and I rolled onto a side and put my right hand in my left armpit and I thought, “What the hell is that?”‘ he told SEN’s The Run Home with Andy & Gazey.
‘It was clearly something different that didn’t belong there and very unlike me, I actually went to the doctor the next day. Normally I leave stuff forever.
Maley, pictured with NBL legend Cal Bruton, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023 after discovering a lump and seeking medical advice
His daughter Anneli Maley (pictured together) is a WNBL MVP while his son Finnbar Maley debuted for North Melbourne in the AFL in 2025
‘The GP thought ‘probably fine’ but sent me away to get an ultrasound.
‘I probably dragged my feet a little bit on that, might have wasted a week.
‘But as soon as I got the ultrasound and that came back with a ‘this doesn’t look great’, then things happened unbelievably quickly.
‘I think from that point, I was scheduled in for a biopsy, then PET scan and I was having surgery within two weeks from that point.’
Australian basketball champion Andrew Gaze then asked his good friend and former rival the question many want answered: is breast cancer in men the same as breast cancer in women?
‘It’s exactly the same [as breast cancer in women],’ he said.
‘There’s not a lot of great things about getting a cancer diagnosis, but breast cancer – because it’s so prevalent around the world, it affects hundreds of millions of women around the world – there is a lot of research and a lot of information and a lot of treatment that is proven to be successful.
‘In my case I found out pretty quickly that it had moved, unfortunately, to a few of my lymph nodes.
Maley spoke about his battle with Australian basketball legend Andrew Gaze and sports journalist Andrew Maher
Maley will join the Pink Lady Match in August 2025 to raise awareness for breast cancer in men
‘Which meant the surgery had to be the tumour and a bunch of my lymph nodes.
‘Whereas initially the surgeon thought I might be able to just get it, and I wouldn’t have to go through chemo.
‘Because it had moved, I ended up having to do six months of really heavy dose chemo.
‘In case anybody’s wondering, it’s not a lot of fun.’
‘There is sort of an asterisk there,’ Maley said when asked if the prognosis was the same with men and women.
‘They send away what they pull out of you in what they call histology, where they pull the tumour and lymph nodes and they come back with for all the hundreds of thousands of women who have exactly this type of tumour or exactly these lymph nodes, here is the best way to treat it.
‘But most of that is based on whether it’s been successful for women.
‘It’s proven to be successful, it is just that the data size for men is much, much smaller.’
Maley will join the Pink Lady Match between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs on August 10.
Fans will hold pink silhouettes honouring Australians recently diagnosed with breast cancer, while Melbourne players’ warm‑up tops will display the names of those affected.
Dees player Jake Melksham will wear Maley’s name as the former basketball star takes part in a guard of honour on the field.
