Former NBA Star Luol Deng Leads South Sudan Basketball to Paris Olympics

Details: Category: NBA; Created: Saturday, 15 June 2024 15:26

Former NBA star Luol Deng is reaping what he started in South Sudan. Six years after the country played its first international basketball tournament, South Sudan defeated Angola in the FIBA World Cup last September 2023. As a result, they became the highest-ranked team in Africa. Also, they qualified for the Paris Olympics.

The next Olympic basketball debut next month will be a landmark for South Sudan, which will celebrate 13 years after its independence from civil conflict in 2011. As a famed Sudanese national and fellow former NBA player Manute Bol introduced Deng to basketball after he escaped the horrors of war, this will be the climax of a dream and a journey for Deng.

According to a sportsbook watchdog, Deng attributes the early success of the South Sudanese national team to that encounter. Also, it was due to the relationships he formed while attending a tiny boarding school in New Jersey.

Former NBA Star Luol Deng and South Sudan Basketball Dreams

Deng, who has been head of the South Sudanese basketball organization since 2019, believes that "The Bright Stars" can unite the country as it struggles to recover from years of war. He is fully aware of the immense success that basketball has provided him.

During the second Sudanese civil war, Deng's father, Aldo, uprooted the family and settled in Egypt when Deng was just three years old. The family had been living in Wau, Sudan. While visiting Bol in Egypt, Deng's family was exposed to the sport of basketball. After Deng's family was given refuge in England, she resided there until 1999, when she was fourteen, when Blair Academy in New Jersey recruited her to attend their boarding school.

According to sports betting software experts, Joe Mantegna was appointed to coach Blair. His first two recruits were a young man from New York named Royal Ivey, who was 18 years old and expecting to play in his final year of college, and a man named Deng, whom UConn had sent to Blair in the hopes that he would one day play for the Huskies like his brother Ajou. After a workout, Mantegna and Ivey were seated in the stands when Deng landed in New Jersey.

Mantegna gradually learned Deng's biography during those days since she stayed near the freshman dorm. Those chats and camaraderie carried over into Deng's time at Duke and the NBA, where he played 16 seasons with five different clubs, was named an All-Star twice and was generally a great guy.

Deng then called Mantegna in 2021 and made a formal request. Deng wished to establish a basketball program in South Sudan, where he participated in other charitable projects and asked Mantegna to be his coach.

Godfather of South Sudan Basketball

During the first two years, Deng funded the squad with millions while the three gradually assembled South Sudan's lineup. Among the players they used were Carlik Jones, who had been named NBA G-League MVP, Wenyen Gabriel, Nuni Omot, and Blair alum Marial Shayok, all of whom had NBA experience.

Even though Omot admitted it was first challenging, everyone bought into his vision for the future.

When the squad initially met in Sudan, they discovered a single outdoor dirt court with rims that were uneven in height and no regulation 10-foot goals.

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