Luol Deng's Incredible Journey from Sudan to NBA Stardom

On Tuesday night Luol Deng, the Sudanese-born, British-qualified, NBA basketball star currently on a $71 million contract, will play with his Chicago Bulls teammates against the Utah Jazz at London's 02 Arena in front of a packed, adoring crowd. In November the NBA season starts all over again and the 6ft 9in Deng will be watched by, among others, Barack Obama, who has publicly declared him to be his favourite basketball star, and Michael Jordan, a personal friend. In 2012 Deng then expects to lead the British basketball team at the London Olympics.

Today, however, Britain's best-paid sports star bar none will watch his beloved Arsenal play Blackburn at The Emirates, before going to his family home in Croydon to taste some of his mother's favourite stuffed peppers for tea. There the Deng family will not talk about Luol's superstar status, but of their miraculous story, and of the friends and family who have not been even remotely as lucky.

His story begins back in a war-ravaged Sudan where, once their father Aldo had been imprisoned for speaking out against the political regime, the Deng family escaped to Egypt where they began to play basketball under the watch of former NBA centre Manute Bol. Then, once his parents had gained political asylum, they moved to Croydon.

It was in South London that Luol turned to football and basketball as opposed to crime. "There's no doubt without sport I could have ended up like some of my friends at the time," he admits. "I did a few things as a kid I now regret. It was hard to say no when there was so much peer pressure. Some of my friends are not doing so well now. Some are in prison, some have been stabbed. I was lucky."

Luol was a good enough footballer to be asked to trial for England Under 16's but he never turned up. "I'd set my sights on going to America and becoming the best basketball player possible. I played football for Croydon Borough, including a few times with Ian Wright's son, but my sister wanted to go to an American college, and my parents would only let her go if I went with her. Besides, I didn't want to take my GCSE's. I remember my football coach was mad at me when I told him the news. But I guess it worked out in the end." He could say that again.

The Deng's are Dinkas, one of the tallest tribes in the world. Brother Ajou is 6ft 11in tall and he was the first of the family to try his luck in basketball in America. Greatness was tipped for him but injuries held him back, although he currently plies his trade as a professional in Europe. Sister Arek had the potential to go all the way, hence the invitation to be schooled at Blair Academy but she, too, was hampered by injury. Her brother, Luol, the eighth of nine siblings, however, came along to the New Jersey boarding school and soon became a young man possessed.    

"He'd wake me at 6 a.m and ask me why I wasn't with him practising shooting," Arek recalls. "From the age of 12 onwards he was so motivated to be the best. He promised me he'd be able to slam dunk before he was 13. He achieved it with months to spare. He'd also go to school each day wearing a specially weighted vest to make him stronger. We knew where we'd come from, and we were so determined to make our father, who had installed the work ethic into us, proud. "

It is fair to say Aldo Deng is very proud of all his offspring because while Ajou is a successful European player, and Arek runs the Luol Deng Foundation, which provides for kids both in England and the Sudan, most notably on basketball courts, and older brother Deng Deng is putting together a basketball league in Southern Sudan which is finally looking ahead to potential independence and the ending of civil war, Luol has become one of the biggest draws in American sport who has the likes of Jordan and Obama straining to talk to him.

"I've met the President a few times and he's always very nice and knowledgeable about the game," Luol explains. "As for Michael (Jordan) he's inspired every basketball player that ever came into the sport after him. It's a privilege to know him, and to play for the same Bulls team that he graced and one day, like him, I'd like to be seen as better than anyone who ever played basketball."

His rise and rise has not been lost on him, however. "I appreciate everything that's ever happened to me," he says. "I am very blessed and I owe so much to so many, not least my family. I don't recall the bombs in Sudan, being one of the youngest, but my brothers and sisters do and when my mother left for Egypt for England to join my father, it was they who brought me up until we could all come over to Croydon. Of course the American collegiate and basketball system has also helped me greatly in life but I have never forgotten what Britain has done for me and my family."

This is why he became a naturalised British citizen in 2006, and this is why he is so happy to be playing in front of a "home" crowd on Tuesday night, and to look forward to the greatest sporting event ever to hit these shores. "I may come from the Sudan, I may have lived in Egypt, I may now live in Chicago, but London is my home, and it always will be. Some of my friends from my childhood days in Croydon are coming to the game on Tuesday, as are many members of my family, and I will make sure I will be there in 2012 to do everything I can to help the British basketball team not only succeed at the Olympics, but promote what is already a mass-participation sport in this country."

Not all his family and friends will be there, however. "I heard about one of Luol's best friends the other day," Arek says. "He's 24, got four kids, and is serving a long prison sentence for armed robbery." Then there's the distant relatives in the Sudan. "Some have died from malaria and famine," Arek adds. "That's why Luol and all the family have launched our Foundation, that's why Luol's put a lot of his own money into the cause, and that's why over dinner at home Luol is just Luol to us. We all appreciate where we've come from."      

Please visit: theluoldengfoundation.org

Luol Deng will play at The 02 on October 6^th as part of NBA Europe Live presented by EA Sports. The game between Deng’s Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz tips off at 7.30pm and will be broadcast live on ESPN and BBC Radio 5 Live.