Much like Joseph's adventurous journey from the pit to the palace, Thabo Sefolosha's journey from Switzerland to the NBA also saw - with apologies to Peter de Villiers - a whole lot of kak happen in between.
Sefolosha's is an extraordinary tale, one that can only have happened to a South African, who in this case became a Swiss.
In fact, Sefolosha has the distinction of being the first Swiss national to be drafted (picked) into the National Basketball Association, the premier professional basketball league in the world and home to such stars as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
He plays for the Chicago Bulls, the storied franchise that was home to Michael Jordan who, along with Scottie Pippen, helped the Bulls win six NBA championships in the 1990s.
However, the likes of Bryant, James and even for that matter Jordan certainly don't have as colourful a tale to tell about their arrival in the big leagues as does Sefolosha.
It's a journey that begins in the dark days of apartheid, when Sefolosha's mother Christine, an artist, travelled to South Africa in search of adventure.
Once here, and mixing in the "arty" circles, she met Patrick Sefolosha, a prominent musician from near Pretoria and the two fell in love.
For a white woman and a black man to be lovers in the old South Africa was extremely dangerous.
"It was back in the days when it wasn't easy for a mixed couple to be in South Africa," Sefolosha recounted in Johannesburg this week.
"They met here and tried to live here for a few years, but it was tough with the regime at the time."
When Christine fell pregnant with Thabo's older brother Kgomotso, she and Patrick had a tough decision to make.
On the Bulls' website, chicagobulls.com, Thabo recalls his father being arrested or roughed up, "just because they were walking together down the street".
"So they decided to go back (to Switzerland) when my mom was pregnant with my older brother," he explained this week.
"They went back to Switzerland, for their kids, because they figured it would be easier for them to grow up over there."
With parents involved in the arts, Thabo, born in May 1984, a year after his parents left South Africa, would perhaps have been expected to pick up a paint brush or a trumpet. Instead he and his brother turned to sports, football initially as one is wont to do in Switzerland, but then almost by accident, basketball.
In an interview with chicagobulls.com, Christine says basketball became "Thabo's passion".
But would he have taken up basketball had he stayed in South Africa?
"Switzerland is not big on basketball either. In Switzerland and South Africa the basketball thing is pretty much the same. I would say, I would have played here, definitely, but it was maybe easier for me being in Switzerland and playing."
At 17, he joined a professional team in the senior Swiss league. On a trip to France his talents were spotted by a scout and he was invited to play in that country's more prominent professional league.
After a contract dispute in France - that had to be settled in court - he moved to Italy. After starring for a team called Angelico Biella, just outside Milan, he was spotted by an NBA scout and in 2006 he was drafted by the Philidelphia 76ers outfit.
American sports being what they are, he was immediately traded to the Bulls, where he has fulfilled a prominent role in the shooting guard position when coming off the bench.
Former Bulls head coach Scott Skiles cited Sefolosha's wingspan - he stands 2,01m and tips the scales at 97,5kg - and past pro basketball experience as reasons why the Bulls were interested in him.
"Thabo's got great physical gifts that, frankly, a lot of guys in the league just don't have. He's got tremendous length and has really quick hands, he grabs your attention whenever you watch him play."
Sefolosha still can't quite believe the way his life has turned out.
"Sometimes I do (pinch myself) but it's great. Since I started two years ago, it's hard to believe that I'm part of all this, playing for the Chicago Bulls, especially. When I was growing up I watched them play, it's just great, I'm blessed."
As for dealing with the pressure that comes with playing for one of the leading teams in the NBA, Sefolosha takes it all in his stride.
"I would say it is a lot of pressure, but it's just great to step on the court to see the banners (indicating the number of NBA championships the Bulls have won), and names like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and the titles that they won is really something special."
And just how South African does he feel?
"I feel as much South African as I do Swiss, all the time at home we were watching what was going on in South Africa. Every time Nelson Mandela was on TV we watched, every book about South Africa, we had that. I feel really South African."
Though he tries to come back to South Africa at least once a year - his father still lives here - since becoming a professional in the NBA he finds this difficult.
Nevertheless when girlfriend Bertille gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, there was little chance of the baby having anything else but a South African name. "Lesedi is a nice name, I liked it and my girlfriend liked it too.
"It was something normal for me to give her a South African name. First of all because I love the South African names and I wanted a name that had meaning more than something like Jean-Marc," he quipped.
For the time-being Sefolosha, who speaks three languages (French, Italian and English) is just living his dream, one that is both Swiss and yet quintessentially South African, all at the same time.
* Sefolosha is in SA as part of the NBA's outreach programme, Basketball without Borders, which conducted a four-day training clinic that ends in Joburg today