What an amazing performance by the Bright Stars
On Saturday, South Sudan nearly pulled off a miraculous win over Team USA, losing 101-100 when Lebron James hit a layup and the US team defended well enough to stop a last second shot by the Bright Stars.
The first thing you need to understand about this win is that it’s a miracle that South Sudan is even there. And the fact that they are there is largely down to Luol Deng.
The former Duke star was asked to put together a team for South Sudan, a newly minted country, and one that is still dealing with war and all the problems of rebuilding a country.
As a measure of their difficulties, there is not a single indoor gym in the country: not a one (Deng is building one).
We’re not sure that a single player on the roster grew up in South Sudan. Most of them are refugees. But whether in the UK, the US, Australia or wherever else they landed, the young men of the diaspora have taken to basketball. You may have heard of a lot of them. The first player from Sudan was Manute Bol; his son Bol Bol was on the team until leaving this week for personal reasons. Otherwise, you may have heard these names before:
And, of course, Khaman Maluach. We’ll come back to him in a minute.
We’re pretty sure that none of these guys even grew up in South Sudan due to the war.
Getting the team off the ground was a labor of love for Deng, and getting into the Olympics was a minor miracle. And while Saturday was just an exhibition, they had a chance to win that game with the last possession and that pretty much qualifies as a miracle.
Back to Maluach.
If he’s not the youngest player to ever compete in Olympic basketball, at 17 he’s not far off. You can see the talent. He is willing to run the court and you can tell that he is coachable from a single detail: watch his follow through. He didn’t learn that from George Raftery or Jay Bilas because he wasn’t watching a lot of ESPN growing up in Uganda. He also is smart enough/well drilled enough to get the ball to a guard after a rebound. He knows what his job is and sticks to it.
He didn't actually play a lot of minutes, but he didn’t back down to the NBA elites the US had on the court. He has a lot of work to do on offense, but looks very coachable. His three point shot was impressive. Keep in mind that he’s only been playing since 2019 and it’s not like he grew up with the game. His potential is sky high. We’d love to see him visit with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and have the legend teach him how to shoot the skyhook.
A couple of points to keep in mind here. First, there's no question that the Bright Stars played better as a team than the US did. Second, although he’s making progress, Kevin Durant has not yet played for Team USA and didn’t get in this one.
And the US won’t always shoot abysmally from three point range.
Still, South Sudan played brilliantly. They showed heart and passion that saw them build a 16 point first half lead and nearly pull off an historic upset.
The US should take some key lessons out of this. First of all, back to the Mike Krzyzewski thing of always - always - respecting your opponent. The US did not do that. And second, if it wasn’t clear before, it should be now: we cannot coast on reputation anymore. Literally any team in the field could pull an upset. The team had better wake up and take every opponent seriously because if they don’t, someone else will play them this way and won’t miss the winning basket. The next exhibition is Germany on Monday and you know they’ll be watching this tape.
