And Changed a Paris, via the Far East. The national basketball team Sud Sudan made history once again. After the first participation in a World and first win against Chinesethe South Sudanese also conquer the former Olympic, just 12 years after independence. The national team got the qualification a Paris 2024. An extraordinary result arrived thanks to the victory overAngola – and to the simultaneous defeat of theEgypt against the New Zeland – in the match valid for the classification round. The elimination against the Serbia is now a distant memory.
A milestone achieved by a quintet that barely knows the nation they represent, due to civil wars which characterized the region, in fact, from 1955 to 2020 except for brief interruptions. Some have been able to keep up with the pace and level of the NBA. Dear Gabriel to begin. He is an exile from the conflict and has shared the team’s shirt 68 times Los Angeles Lakers with lebron James e Anthony Davis. And then there is Carlik Jones. In the last two years he has played just 12 games between Dallas, Denver and Chicago, but above all he has led the “Bright Stars” to the next Olympics with 26 points, 7 rebounds and 15 assists in the decisive match against Angola. Show Omot he has practically never been to South Sudan, given that he was born in refugee camp of Nairobi, Kenya, where his parents had fled to escape atrocities and persecution. Marial Shayokformer Philadelphia 76ers, was born and raised in Ottawa, Canadian Ontario. Kuany Kuany instead he comes from Aweil, a city in the north of the country, and emigrated hastily to Australia when he was 9 years old.
To these is added Khaman Maluach, 16 years old (he will turn 17 on 14 September). Third youngest player ever to make World Cup debut. Maluach possesses the mix of mobility, defensive skills and three-point shooting that have always fascinated the NBA. All on a physique of 218cm. A diamond in the rough, who only started playing seriously two years ago in Uganda. In front of his young age, the first crossroads can already be glimpsed. He still has two years left to finish high school, then he will have to choose whether to go to NCAA (universities like UCLA and Georgetown have already sought him out) or become the first player ever to move from Africa to the NBA in the 2025 Draft. But like any self-respecting good story, there is a need for someone who brings all the pieces, which indicate the way forward. And this is ex-NBA Luol Dengtoday at the head of the federation.
As a child he was forced to flee to Egypt and take refuge there, because in the meantime, the second civil war had broken out in Sudan. Here Deng begins to give confidence to the ball in wedges, after meeting Manute Bol (died in 2010 at just 47 years old), 231 centimeters spread over just 90 kilos. Manute was of Dinka ethnicity, the same as the Deng family, and between the 80s and 90s he had bewitched the NBA between Washington BulletGolden State e Philadelphia 76ers. For Deng it becomes a real inspiration. After obtaining political asylum in England, at the age of 14 Deng manages to fly to the United States, where his talent for sport explodes definitively, going from Chicago Bulls ai Miami Heat, from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Los Angeles Lakers. But it is after having said enough that he understands his mission: to build a whole movement in his South Sudan. A vision that took just ten years to bear fruit.
South Sudan has in fact become independent In the 2011, and immediately plunged back into the abyss of another civil war, this time all South Sudanese. Between December 2013 and February 2020 the ethnic groups of the Dinka and the Nuer they fought each other ignoring any calls for peace. A’social instability radical that prevented the country from developing. In all of South Sudan there is no arena where to play their national team and about 90 percent of the inhabitants live in villages. In this context Deng has personally recruited every single member of the national team, paying from his own pocket tripsrallies, loves and leave. But most importantly Deng brought together Dinka and Nuer players. And perhaps, even more than the World Cup and the next Olympics, this is precisely the greatest goal he wants to achieve: to make basketball the means to definitively unify and pacify an entire country.
2023-09-03 07:18:10
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