Deng reaches milestones as he continues to thrive in Cairns

Majok Deng is one season and six games into his CQUniversity Cairns Taipans career which has signalled the best and most consistent form of his time in the NBL, and it's marked him reaching some significant milestones.

Coming out of University of Louisiana-Monroe having grown up in Adelaide after coming to Australia early in life having been born in South Sudan and spending several years in Kenya, Deng was hot property for the NBL ahead of the 2016/17 season.

He signed with his hometown 36ers and while he had his moments over the next three seasons, including a standout Grand Final series in 2018, he was craving more and that opportunity was going to present should he earn it at the Taipans.

That's exactly how it eventuated with Deng producing the best season of his career in 2019/20 with the Taipans as he became a crucial member of the team that went to the semi finals and got within one game of a Grand Final appearance.

Deng delivered career highs across the board with Cairns with 11.9 points a game along with 4.0 rebounds while shooting at 48.6 per cent from the field, 36.2 per cent from three-point land and 79.8 per cent from the foul line.

He has again started the 2021 season impressive too again going at 10.5 points and 5.0 rebounds a game, and he has reached some significant career milestones along the way.

Deng has now surpassed 1000 career points during his 127-game career in the NBL and he has also hit more than 100 three-pointers across that time too.

For someone who stands 6'9 and has the wingspan well over seven-foot, to be such a pure scorer and shooter continues to be a great strength to Deng's game as he's now scored 1028 points in 127 games in the NBL while knocking down 101 three-pointers at a more than solid 38 per cent.

When he looks at the start to his 2021 season, he always knows his offensive game will come but he's continuing to work on becoming a better defender, and finding more ways to contribute to the team's success.

"For myself I haven’t really tried to put a lot of pressure on myself offensively, I've never worried about my jump shot or scoring ability. What I'm focusing on is being able to help the team rebounds and play better defence, that's where my focus is," Deng said.

"Then on offence, whatever the position is that the team puts me in to score, I'll be there to score. But my main focus is just to help do all the little things and provide energy. That's where my focus is right now."

Looking back on last Saturday's overtime loss in Brisbane against the Bullets in the first road trip for the Taipans in 2021, Deng and his teammates came away feeling they let a chance slip of returning to the winner's list especially after their 55-40 half-time lead.

But rather than let that get them down, Deng is sensing a real determination to bounce back this week on Saturday and Monday against the New Zealand Breakers at Cairns Pop-Up Arena.

"We know we gave that game away. We played the right way, there were just small things that we didn’t do that let the game slip out of our hands," he said.

"But the energy around the guys has been good. We've forgotten about that game and we're just trying to focus on the next one, that's where our mindset is right now. We are just looking to see what we can do better on Saturday."

While not wanting to look back on how well last season went for the Taipans and himself personally, Deng remains confident the Snakes are on track to turn things around in 2021 and to be a force once again.

"We don’t want to compare to last year because every season is a lot different, and especially this year is a lot different. But we have a lot of confidence in ourselves and we know we're going to bounce back," Deng said. 

"It's a long season and we know we have to go into Melbourne and then come back so it's a really long season and we're not really worried about what our record is right now. We just want to take one game at a time and build that confidence from there."