Luol Deng has opened up about the terrifying ordeal of getting misdiagnosed after suffering an illness during the 2013 playoffs while playing for the Bulls.
“If you remember, that year we went to the playoffs, the year that D. Rose got hurt,” Deng said recently on the Knuckleheads Podcast. “We were playing Brooklyn, and there was a flu going around with the team. One of the doctors suggested that, because my fever was so high, I might have meningitis. Out of nowhere, they just sent me to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, they misdiagnosed me. They ended up saying my fever was too high and whatnot, and they ended up giving me a spinal tap surgery.”
It turned out Deng did not have meningitis and he subsequently had to deal with the complications of the surgery, which included spinal fluid leakage and loss of control of his body.
He wanted to sue the Bulls, but decided against it because all he wanted to do was come back and play.
“I ended up missing the playoffs,” Deng said. “And what happened was that year there was a dispute going on with the NBPA and so on about me suing the Bulls because of what took place.”But I knew that if I sued 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 wanted to hoop so I said, ‘Yo, I’m not suing anyone. I’m just going to hoop. I’m just going to come back.'”
Deng made a comeback, just be be traded to the Cavs.
“Nothing was the same,” Deng said. “It just felt like, you know, every game I was given an opportunity to prove that I’m healthy. And as the year went on, like you said, I’m the leading scorer. I’m averaging almost 20 points.
“The next thing I know is I’m traded to Cleveland, and I still believe that move was made, really, because I’ve played enough games to show that, you know, I was healthy. That’s when the team started being broken up, and one by one after I left, you know, you started seeing people being moved, Thibs being moved and so on.”