Out of Africa: The journey of Bulls star Luol Deng

We are a nation of immigrants. How many of us wouldn’t be here if not for a potato famine or a pogrom, a religious inquisition or economic chaos?

For Luol Deng, it was a civil war ­— the civil war in the Darfur region of Sudan that would leave at least 200,000 dead and force his father to flee with his wife and children.

“If that wouldn’t have happened, I wouldn’t be here,’’ he said.

But it did, and he is here. And a lot of things are starting to fall into place these days in the world of Luol Deng.

And we do mean “world.’’

Not only are Deng and the Bulls having a banner year on the court, but after decades of deadly civil strife, his war-torn homeland will become the independent nation of Southern Sudan in July.

“It’s great,’’ said Deng, who hired two buses to bring Sudanese natives from Michigan to Chicago in January so they could vote on the referendum for independence. “There’s been civil war for years. We’re excited about the separation. We just have to keep the small rebels in control. But overall, I think it’s a great thing for both countries.’’

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Another big influence was Duke star Grant Hill — or, rather, a how-to tape made by Hill.

“Lu said the way he learned to play basketball was, some kid got a hold of a Grant Hill VHS tape,’’ Griffin said. “They went house to house, knocking on people’s doors, asking if they had a VHS player so they could watch the tape. They watched that tape a hundred million times. That’s how he learned to play basketball.’’