Greatest unsung hero in every NBA team’s history

Chicago Bulls: Luol Deng

Now we get to a man who almost literally gave his life for the Chicago Bulls during the Tom Thibodeau era.

Luol Deng spent the first nine-plus seasons of his career with the team that drafted him seventh overall in the 2004 NBA Draft. It didn’t take long for Deng to become one of the more dependable two-way players in the NBA…when he was on the floor.

The former Duke Blue Devil averaged 16.1 points and 6.4 rebounds per game during his time in Chicago, while also accruing 58.4 of his 73.5 win shares there. 32.7 of them were on the defensive end of the floor.

While he struggled with injuries early in his career, as he played in 70 or more games just twice in his first five seasons, Deng became a glue guy for those Thibodeau Bulls teams in the early 2010s. This was especially the case after Derrick Rose’s string of horrific knee injuries.

Of course, as we now know, being a Thibodeau guy can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing. This is mainly due to his proclivity to ignore modern science and overplay his players.

Deng became one of the first casualties of this philosophy. Between the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons, Deng led the NBA in minutes played. That’s taxing enough, but when you factor in Deng exerting maximum energy on both ends of the court, it wasn’t hard to envision his body eventually giving way.

And it did. The heavy minutes combined with his injury history, which included a misdiagnosis by the Bulls medical team that led to the spinal tap surgery that put his life in danger, rendered Deng into a shell of his former self. It has gotten to the point where he has now become a journeyman rotation player.

But in Chicago, fans will remember Deng as someone who gave everything he had to the Bulls.