A decade-long partnership with the Chicago Bulls, 637 games, averaging 36 minutes per game: This is what the 6’9″ forward Luol Deng has to part with as he was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers amidst the 2013-14 season. However, the trade has a not-so-explored backstory which the 2x NBA All-Star reveals on a recent podcast. As it turns out, there happened to be a key medical error, which could have triggered a lawsuit from Deng against the Bulls despite his 10 Seasons with the team. 

The latest Knuckleheads podcast hosted by NBA veterans Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles featured the former Bulls jersey No. 9. Miles asked whether Chicago gave up on the core in Deng’s last year with them after the 3x NBA All-Star Derrick Rose got hurt. Catching hold of this opportunity, the Sudanese-British legend connected it with the improper diagnosis that eventually got him traded.

Deng vouched for his words as exclusive while saying: “If you remember that year, we went to the playoffs, the year that D-Rose got hurt. We were playing Brooklyn and there was a flu going on with the team. And one of the doctors suggested that because my fever was so high, they suggested that I had meningitis.”

He recollects how he was sent to a hospital where he was recommended for a spinal tap surgery to confirm the case. Responding to our perplexed hosts he added, “Yeah, this is what happened. This is how I missed the playoffs that year.” Don’t you think that calls for a lawsuit from the veteran considering his teammates who had similar symptoms went on with the game?

Indeed the 39-year-old former Bulls star holds some memory of such discourses: “What happened was, that year there was a dispute going on with the MBPA and so on about me suing the Bulls because of what took place. But I knew that if I sue the Bulls, I would either not play basketball ever again in order to win the case, to prove that things didn’t go well and this could be career-ending. But I wanted to hoop. So I said, yo, I’m not suing anyone. I’m just going to hoop.”

As Deng further states, the thought of losing his basketball career while proving the case took him off from that decision. Hence, he never went ahead with the lawsuit against the Bulls. This is where the legend chooses a comeback only to his dismay.

The spinal fluid leak post the procedure took a hard toll on Deng. However, he managed to be the leading scorer averaging 20 as is evident in his last 5 games with the Bulls. Such a leaderboard however goes unappreciated as Deng sees it as making ways to prove his health for the trade. It is no wonder that you have an urge to ponder his former role among the Bulls!

The void left by Luol Deng

“No matter what I do for the rest of my career, I think I’ll always be a Bulls guy,” NBA.com reported Deng from a Chicago speech while marching to his retirement in 2019. This is a two-way deal considering he played two-thirds of his 902 career games with Chicago Bulls. No wonder he signed a one-day contract with the franchise to retire as its player, regardless of a 2014 trade where they exchanged him for Andrew Bynum. 

In the ten years that he played for Chicago, Deng averaged 16 points, 6 rebounds, and 1 assists per game. Of the 637 games he played for the Windy City franchise, he started 591, averaging 35.9 minutes per game.

Deng was good at both skills of the hard floor, scoring and rebounding. The best example would be the 2007 playoff Game 1 between the Bulls and the Heat. In a game that took the Bulls to victory by 96-91 against the Heat, Deng led the team with 33 points and 8 rebounds regardless of a defending champions team with stalwarts like Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade on the other side. Not yet done!

Beyond scoring, there is a relentless player who has a career average of 34.3 minutes per game. Since he was with the Windy City for 10 years in his 15-year-long career and considering his Regular Season GP records, it will not be overlooked to put him as one of the most reliable players in Bulls history.

Now that this recent podcast shed light on the point of detachment for this legendary player-franchise partnership, you may consider if the Chicago Bulls made the right decision a decade ago.