Deng 'slumming it’ at the Olympics to give Britain a rich reward

Luol Deng is a rising NBA force, but life was not always so bright. He tells The Times why he now wants to give something back

Matthew Syed in Bradenton, Florida

It is a late summer’s day in 1992 and the sun is beating down on a crumbling basketball court on the outskirts of the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria. The court, as ever, is populated by a small group of Sudanese teenagers, the children of families who have fled the brutal civil war that rages across Egypt’s southern border.

The backboards are falling apart and the rims are so badly damaged that the youngsters often have to rummage for screws to nail them back into place. Young Sudanese children line the perimeter of the court, wide-eyed as they watch their older brothers and cousins go through their paces. Among them is a seven-year-old called Luol Deng.

Unusually tall for his age, he is beckoned on to the court for the first time, his heart racing. Ajou, his older brother, talks him through the art of the lay-up, the first move that the group will practise today. He puts two pieces of paper on the floor to mark where Deng should position his feet and watches intently along with the rest of the group.

The youngster takes a deep breath and runs forward. He plants left foot, then right and leaps high, his small hand flicking the ball towards the backboard. After landing with a thud, he looks up: the ball has failed even to touch the rim.

It is an inauspicious start to a sporting journey that will take Deng into the fabled NBA in the United States and enable him to amass riches beyond dreams. The 22-year-old is on the brink of signing a five-year contract extension with the Chicago Bulls that could earn him more than $80 million (about £40 million).

I am sitting opposite Deng at the IMG Academy in western Florida, where he is about to embark on a training session with his team-mates from the Great Britain squad. The players have been assembled from clubs around the world for one purpose: to make it on to the podium at the Olympic Games in London in 2012.

Many NBA mega-stars turn their noses up at the thought of slumming it at the Olympics. Not Deng. His ambition for 2012, if anything, is even more intense than his Britain teammates. He wants to give something back to the nation that granted his family political asylum in 1993, the nation that provided him with a home and schooling, the nation he calls home.

“Things were tough in Egypt,” he says. “We lived in a three-bedroom flat: me, my eight brothers and sisters and two aunts. Most of the time my parents were in London fighting for political asylum, so we were brought up by my older sister. When Britain gave us the chance to move I was 8 and did not speak English. But it changed our lives.

“I will always feel grateful that Britain opened its arms to us. We had originally left Sudan [when Deng was 4] for Egypt because my father was a victim of political persecution [he was Minister for Transport in the Sudanese Cabinet but was imprisoned for three months after the government fell in 1989]. It is difficult to know what would have happened to my family had we not been granted asylum.”

Deng spent two years living in Wimbledon before the family moved to South Norwood. At first he neglected basketball in favour of football, but after a trip to Brixton for basketball training with his older brother, his passion was reignited. His remarkable talent caught the eye of Jimmy Rogers, the coach of Brixton Topcats, and by the age of 14 Deng had been offered a scholarship to Blair Academy in the US. Five years on he hit the jackpot, drafted into the NBA.

“It was a magnificent break because thousands of youngsters are aiming for the NBA and the competition is intense,” he says. “I worked really hard at school to get noticed [in his second year at Blair he was rated the second-most promising high school player in the country after Lebron Jones, who is now with the Cleveland Cavaliers]. The first match for the Bulls was nerve-racking, but things have gone really well over the last three seasons. But there is more to life than basketball – much, much more.”

Deng is a young man of unusual depth: articulate, charismatic and deeply engaged with the world. He is among a tiny minority of athletes who regard sport not as an end in itself but an opportunity to do something grander with life. Conscious of his heritage as a Dinka, a tribe from southern Sudan, he is a spokesman for Nothing But Nets, a charity that combats malaria in Africa. “I have seen malaria and lost family members to it,” Deng says. He is also involved with Basketball Without Borders, the NBA’s community outreach programme.

Early next month he will spend a week in Reading to coach at a training camp for young English players. The Britain coaches describe him as “extraordinary”, “exemplary” and “one of a kind”. John Paxson, the general manager of the Bulls, said: “He really does epitomise everything I had hoped for as a person and a basketball player. I think it’s one of the reasons we’ve gotten to the level we’re at this year.”

The measure of Deng’s growing stature is that he recently won the NBA’s sportsmanship award in a vote by his peers. The award honours the player who best exemplifies ethical behaviour, fair play and integrity on the court.

“Right now I don’t feel that I can get involved in politics,” he says. “In Sudan, for example, the rival groupings are complex and the situation is very difficult. But I feel that I can do something to help those who are suffering and to assist the victims of war and illness. That is what I want to do. Playing basketball is something I am passionate about and I give it my all. But a large part of the motivation is that the better I get, the more influence I will have beyond the court.”

The next evening the Britain team are back in the gym for another training session. After the warm-up, the players divide into three teams of five who take it in turns to compete against each other. Although Deng is anonymous for the first few minutes, the gulf in class is soon apparent and his teammates take every opportunity to ship the ball his way.

The Britain team have not competed in the Olympics since the Games were last in London, in 1948, but it is easy to feel optimistic about any gathering of men spearheaded by Deng. “The prospects for British basketball have been transformed by Luol’s commitment to the cause,” Chris Finch, the Britain head coach, says. “Can we win gold in 2012? It is not beyond the bounds of possibility.”

National service
Aug 16 and 17 Great Britain v Ireland (international friendlies) K2 leisure centre, Crawley, West Sussex
Aug 21 Britain v Slovakia NIA Birmingham (EuroBasket)
Sept 1 Britain v Albania Meadowbank, Edinburgh (EuroBasket)
Sept 11 or 15 EuroBasket play-off Ponds Forge, Sheffield
— Tickets and event information is available at basketballgb.com