# REPORT: Luol Deng a Jerk



## BG7 (Jun 25, 2003)

*Edit: Luis Arroyave Wrote:*



> Luol Deng on soccer
> 
> Bulls forward Luol Deng attended Sunday's Fire-Colorado Rapids game at Toyota Park to promote the Nothing But Nets charity. At halftime, Deng came into the pressbox to "speak" with reporters.
> 
> ...


*Edit: A fan writing a comment to the article wrote:*


> My wife and 2 1/2 year old son were at the game. Before the match we saw Luol just standing by himself outside the stadium. My family and I are also big Bulls fans so I asked for a quick picture with me and my son. He looked at me with pure distain, and said, "whatever, just make it quick." What a jerk, and he was there representing NBA Cares! What a joke!


http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/soccer_redcard/2007/07/do-not-publish.html

A jerk..surely not! He was just upset that he was forced to go to a soccer game...a freaking soccer game..no wonder he was so upset, soccer for goodness sake.


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

Even the nicest of players can have bad days and they surely get tired of all the interviews, pics, and autographs. 


ACE


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

Interesting. Here is another report that came out of the same availability in the same press box. Sounds like he was congenial with the Kane County reporter...

http://www.kcchronicle.com/articles/2007/07/02/sports/nba/bulls/doc4688c834556d5484189119.txt



> Deng: Noah’s game dressed for success
> By DANIEL I. DORFMAN - [email protected]
> Comments (No comments posted.)
> BRIDGEVIEW – As he entered the Fire press box to lend support to a malaria awareness campaign, Bulls forward Luol Deng acknowledged his newest teammate has an interesting fashion sense.
> ...


Maybe he just doesn't have as must patience for bloggers.


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## Snake (Jun 10, 2007)

If he came to talk to reporters during half time I'm guessing pretty much all the reporters there were going to try to talk to him and he was just trying to get it out of the way. Don't know what the big deal is about being disinterested in some lame interview.

I love when reporters get their feelings hurt. Was it Sam Smith that wrote that hatchet job on Tyrus before the slam dunk contest?


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## O2K (Nov 19, 2002)

dont know why this matters.

He was probbaly being asked the same things over and over. They're human too. Atleast he didn't answer with sarcastice ******* responses.


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## narek (Jul 29, 2005)

Mr. Arroyave, if you read your own paper, you would know Deng played soccer as a kid. If you want better answers, ask better questions.


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## Aesop (Jun 1, 2003)

Well....he has been hanging around Tyrus....maybe he's rubbing off on him.


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## transplant (Jul 31, 2002)

TomBoerwinkle#1 said:


> Interesting. Here is another report that came out of the same availability in the same press box. Sounds like he was congenial with the Kane County reporter...
> 
> http://www.kcchronicle.com/articles/2007/07/02/sports/nba/bulls/doc4688c834556d5484189119.txt
> 
> ...


Or maybe, being by all accounts a very focused and dedicated professional basketball player, he is a little more into talking about basketball than soccer.

Note to Arroyave: when an interview is crashing and burning, particularly one in which you elected to "boldly" explore an star NBA player's views on soccer, asking a question like "When was the last time you kicked a soccer ball?" may not be the way to go.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

I'm pretty confused by what, exactly, is making him such a jerk from what I read.


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## Vintage (Nov 8, 2002)

MikeDC said:


> I'm pretty confused by what, exactly, is making him such a jerk from what I read.


Me too. Read the interview and didn't see anything that makes him come off as a jerk. Unless the interviewer was expecting Deng to go into full fledge detailed responses...in which case, maybe better questions should have been asked (Do you like Henry?)

What a dumb interview. Stupid questions illicit stupid responses.

And I totally don't care if I spelled that wrong.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

Really, asking an athlete who was raised most of his life in England if he's ever been to a soccer match before is probably a pretty good indicator that the writer didn't know anything about his interviewee.

I'm sure that can be annoying to someone being interviewed.


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## GNG (Aug 17, 2002)

Mebarak said:


> http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/soccer_redcard/2007/07/do-not-publish.html
> 
> A jerk..surely not! He was just upset that he was forced to go to a soccer game...a freaking soccer game..no wonder he was so upset, soccer for goodness sake.


Pretty lousy questions. I hope he wasn't expecting Luol to give him some profound, write-a-whole-article-based-on-this nugget of gold for the question, "When was the last time you kicked a soccer ball?"

He's a basketball player. It's fine to brush through his past sports experience to try and tie him into the event, but don't dwell on it like that - I doubt Deng wants to spend five minutes playing 20 Questions about his *soccer* background. Make it relevant.


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## Vintage (Nov 8, 2002)

Rawse said:


> Pretty lousy questions. I hope he wasn't expecting Luol to give him some profound, write-a-whole-article-based-on-this nugget of gold for the question, "When was the last time you kicked a soccer ball?"
> 
> He's a basketball player. It's fine to brush through his past sports experience to try and tie him into the event, but don't dwell on it like that - I doubt Deng wants to play 20 Questions about his *soccer* background. Make it relevant.



Whaddya mean?

A question like "Are you a Thierry Henry kind of guy?" isn't a deep, profound question that you can expect a 20 minute discussion about, with the ability to turn that into a multi page article?


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## BG7 (Jun 25, 2003)

Whats even worse is how these guys (the soccer guy, and I think KC Johnson and Sam Smith), are calling these players jerks. Talk about a lack of professionalism.


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## GNG (Aug 17, 2002)

Vintage said:


> Whaddya mean?
> 
> A question like "Are you a Thierry Henry kind of guy?" isn't a deep, profound question that you can expect a 20 minute discussion about, with the ability to turn that into a multi page article?


I like how he just gets vindictive by outright posting the entire conversation. 

Look readers! Luol Deng gave me short answers! He was curt with me! He gave me one-word answers and didn't help me with my homework assignment!

Obviously, not every jock is going to give every yahoo interviewer some vivid, detailed, life-altering answer. It seems from the other interview posted that Deng opens up and gives something a journalist can actually use when the journalist does his (or her) part by asking a question with some degree of thought or relevance behind it.

Most likely, from the first question "Have you ever been to a soccer game before?" when Deng was raised in England, Deng just knew the guy was a joke and tried to end the interview as soon as possible so he could talk to someone good at their job and answer some real questions.


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## Snake (Jun 10, 2007)

> DEERFIELD, Ill. -- Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng won the NBA's sportsmanship award Thursday, edging Shane Battier and four other divisional winners in a vote by players.
> 
> Deng received 52 first-place votes and 2,027 points -- 22 more than Battier of Houston. Utah's Derek Fisher (1,953) was third, followed by the Clippers' Elton Brand (1,935), Atlanta's Joe Johnson (1,737) and Toronto's Anthony Parker (1,611).
> 
> ...


I can't believe Deng had us fooled when we all thought he was a nice guy. What a douchebag!


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## dougthonus (Jul 18, 2006)

I met Luol Deng and interviewed him for draftexpress, and he was awesome, and I couldn't believe how nice and friendly he was. He was also _sick_ at the time, so if ever there was a time for him to want to crap on someone, you would think that would be it.


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## Mr. T (Jan 29, 2004)

This blogger clown, whom I've never heard of seems like he was probably just trying to raise his own visibility at Luol's expense. I agree that the short answers are a result of grade school like questions. The gun to his head thing shows an extreme lack of professionalism. Is that really what Luol did? Is he certain that was the gesture? The context for it? Was it even meant for this reporter or in response to the interview or was it meant for someone else? If Clinton could suggest it's what the meaning of "Is", is then I'd suggest this guy was a bonehead for putting this in his report unless Luol sat there at the interview and did it to his face.

As for the comparisons with this guy to KC or Sam Smith, there are none. KC gave Tyrus several opportunities to backtrack on what he said and he wouldn't. Sam Smith wrote his article AFTER the Tyrus slam comments and as far as I'm concerned Tyrus was fair game at that point.

Tyrus probably is a jerk. Luol, I'd bet the farm against it.


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## BG7 (Jun 25, 2003)

Mr. T said:


> This blogger clown, whom I've never heard of seems like he was probably just trying to raise his own visibility at Luol's expense. I agree that the short answers are a result of grade school like questions. The gun to his head thing shows an extreme lack of professionalism. Is that really what Luol did? Is he certain that was the gesture? The context for it? Was it even meant for this reporter or in response to the interview or was it meant for someone else? If Clinton could suggest it's what the meaning of "Is", is then I'd suggest this guy was a bonehead for putting this in his report unless Luol sat there at the interview and did it to his face.
> 
> As for the comparisons with this guy to KC or Sam Smith, there are none. KC gave Tyrus several opportunities to backtrack on what he said and he wouldn't. Sam Smith wrote his article AFTER the Tyrus slam comments and as far as I'm concerned Tyrus was fair game at that point.
> 
> Tyrus probably is a jerk. Luol, I'd bet the farm against it.


Arrogaye was the guy who did the gun gesture, not Luol.


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## Mr. T (Jan 29, 2004)

Mebarak said:


> Arrogaye was the guy who did the gun gesture, not Luol.


Well, color me confused. What exactly did Luol do wrong? :biggrin:


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## lougehrig (Mar 1, 2005)

Mebarak said:


> http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/soccer_redcard/2007/07/do-not-publish.html
> 
> A jerk..surely not! He was just upset that he was forced to go to a soccer game...a freaking soccer game..no wonder he was so upset, soccer for goodness sake.


He was there and he did answer the questions and he did take the picture. Not like he didn't do those things. Who the is loser Arroyave? Some no-name wannabe? Why should Luol have to kiss that guys a**? 

Luol does a tremendous amount of work for the charities and the Sudan. He was won the NBA Sportmanship award this year. What has Arroyave or anyone else ever done for charity that gives them the right to critize Luol? Doesn't make sense to me.

Besides who says people can't be jerks? As long as they play hard on the court and stay out of legal trouble, that seems like a good role model to me. If a guy is too nice, he'll probably be a big baby on the court, a la Eddy Curry.


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## Mr. T (Jan 29, 2004)

lougehrig said:


> He was there and he did answer the questions and he did take the picture. Not like he didn't do those things. Who the is loser Arroyave? Some no-name wannabe? Why should Luol have to kiss that guys a**?
> 
> Luol does a tremendous amount of work for the charities and the Sudan. He was won the NBA Sportmanship award this year. What has Arroyave or anyone else ever done for charity that gives them the right to critize Luol? Doesn't make sense to me.


Just because someone had done some good for charity it doesn't exempt them from criticism. Just ask Imus.

I can't stand Imus, but did making that off-hand remark really warrant taking down a guy who had raised over FORTY MILLION DOLLARS for childrens charities? I mean, that's just insane. Let the guy plead mea culpa and move on. He's done more good than probably 99.9% of the population ever will. Far too often insanity wins out.


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## thebizkit69u (Feb 12, 2003)

I dont understand why so many of you guys on here are bashing Luis Arroyave, no where in his thread did he say that Luol was a jerk nor did he even sugest that Luol was a jerk, a bad interview yeah but not a jerk. 

Luis does great work covering the Fire and is a nice guy himself, hes just caught Luol Deng in a bad mood.


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## ChadWick (Jun 26, 2006)

Hmmmm


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

thebizkit69u said:


> I dont understand why so many of you guys on here are bashing Luis Arroyave, no where in his thread did he say that Luol was a jerk nor did he even sugest that Luol was a jerk, a bad interview yeah but not a jerk.
> 
> Luis does great work covering the Fire and is a nice guy himself, hes just caught Luol Deng in a bad mood.


I think the problem is a lot of people (like me on the first pass) probably didn't click on the link and read the article. The way it was originally presented was extremely confusing.

I added a couple of *edits in bolded blue* to help clarify.

If you actually read it, Aroyave's post is the first quote. Instead of making Deng look like a jerk, I think his intent was actually to fess up to asking a lousy set of questions. At least, that's the way I read it.

The second quote (talking about Deng saying "whatever..." to the autograph request) is from a reader responding to the original article.

Read with those essential elements, it's pretty obvious it was no hit piece, and in fact Deng might have been a bit less than friendly to the fan. The writer of the article, also, isn't an "amateur", he's the Soccer beat writer for the Trib.


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## Sham (Dec 2, 2002)

I'd be annoyed too if people kept asking me questions that were

a) Already a matter of record
b) Really, really boring.

I appreciate that this post just duplicates what everybody else has said beforehand, but why not I say.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

MikeDC said:


> I think the problem is a lot of people (like me on the first pass) probably didn't click on the link and read the article. The way it was originally presented was extremely confusing.
> 
> I added a couple of *edits in bolded blue* to help clarify.
> 
> ...



I do and did appreciate the distinction between the soccer writer/blogger and the fan comment.

Here is the part of the original post that seems to confirm, at least to me, that this is not a semi-apologitic "my bad" from the writer, but a Sam Smith worthy "Hey, he was a meanny guy to me...waaaaah" piece"



> At halftime, Deng came into the pressbox to "speak" with reporters.
> 
> Deng was thrilled to talk to me, and by thrilled, I mean he looked like he wanted me to go away. But rather than describe our interaction, why not show you the conversation. Here goes nothing. And by nothing, I mean nothing.


The photo op story is just a little piling on...


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## Cyanobacteria (Jun 25, 2002)

This line of questioning reminds me of Ralphy walking with Lisa Simpson on Valentine's Day: "So... do you like... stuff?"

How about a question on the charity he's there to support? Maybe?


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

TomBoerwinkle#1 said:


> I do and did appreciate the distinction between the soccer writer/blogger and the fan comment.
> 
> Here is the part of the original post that seems to confirm, at least to me, that this is not a semi-apologitic "my bad" from the writer, but a Sam Smith worthy "Hey, he was a meanny guy to me...waaaaah" piece"


Maybe... but it doesn't really indicate much poor behavior on Deng's part, and coupled with the "I'll go shoot myself" ending... which seemed warranted given his lame questions, it doesn't seem like much of a deal to me. Meh... I just don't care one way or another based on what I read.



> The photo op story is just a little piling on...


"Piling on" makes the guy's story sound like an unwarranted cheap shot. I don't see why a fan shouldn't comment if he feels like Deng was rude.


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## Snake (Jun 10, 2007)

MikeDC said:


> "Piling on" makes the guy's story sound like an unwarranted cheap shot. I don't see why a fan shouldn't comment if he feels like Deng was rude.


I'm not buying the fans comments. He's an anonymous person on the internet who gave a story which can't be verified one way or the other. I'm not saying he is lying (which he might be) but it should at the very least be taken with a grain of salt.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

Snake said:


> I'm not buying the fans comments. He's an anonymous person on the internet who gave a story which can't be verified one way or the other. I'm not saying he is lying (which he might be) but it should at the very least be taken with a grain of salt.


I take everything with salt


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## bullybullz (Jan 28, 2007)

Well here are the other comments on that website interview.

_I was with my son and was just about to point him out so my son could get a picture with him. *Then I saw Deng look like he wanted to be on another planet when someone offered a high five.* I decided not to point him out.

Oh well. It's the off season I guess. 

Posted by: JT (Chicago) | Jul 3, 2007 12:03:38 PM_

_*Deng sat in the SW corner of the stadium for most of the 2nd half*, before leaving around minute 85. He did take some pictures with a group of kids that found him over there, but other than that, *he mostly text messaged on his phone.*

He did get into the game when Carr had his one good chance at goal though.

Posted by: kebzach | Jul 3, 2007 1:08:32 PM_

I'm not saying these comments are true or made up but maybe Arroyave was also basing what he wrote by what he saw from Deng by looking around when Deng was talking with others or whatever.

Again, it's not that big of a deal. Who knows. Maybe Deng lost a loved one or broke up with someone??


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## Rhyder (Jul 15, 2002)

MikeDC said:


> I take everything with salt


Watch ye olde heart.


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## badfish (Feb 4, 2003)

Everybody's a reporter these days, what with all the blogging and podcasting. The vast majority of this stuff is a joke, not including dougthonus' work of course.


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