At 6’11”, 232 lbs., Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah is as tough and rugged as they come. People may see the long hair and slender frame of Noah and think that he is soft, but he is far from it. While at the University of Florida, Noah helped the school win consecutive national titles. During the 2006 NCAA Championship Game, Noah went out of his way to blow kisses in the direction of the UCLA cheerleaders while also teasing fans who were heckling him. Noah would go on to be selected as the Most Outstanding Player of the 2006 NCAA Tournament. Florida became the first school since Duke University in 1991 and 1992 to repeat as national champions in men’s basketball and in the process they had a bulls eye on their backs. But Noah didn’t have a problem embracing the role of the villain for Florida as he became that the player that people loved to hate. In 2007, the Bulls used the 9th overall pick of the NBA Draft on Noah and the team hasn’t been the same since.
On January 2, the Bulls record was 13-18. By January 7 the Bulls had traded longtime forward Luol Deng to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Deng was not only the leading the scorer for the Bulls at the time of the trade with 19.0 points per game, but he was also one of Noah’s best friends on the team and he was obviously upset when the deal went down. Noah has not let the Deng trade take away from his productivity with the Bulls. For the month of January, Noah averaged 13.6 points, 14.1 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 1.9 blocks, and 1.1 assists per game. Noah’s highlights for the month of January include a 17-point, 11-rebound, 9-assist performance in a 94-82 victory over the Celtics and a 17-point, 21-rebound, 6-assist game against the Los Angeles Lakers which resulted in a 102-100 victory for Chicago. The Bulls are now 24-25 as they have the sixth best record in the Eastern Conference.
With Deng gone and point guard Derrick Rose lost for the second consecutive season as the result of a knee injury, Noah has become the face of the Bulls. When Rose missed the entire 2012-2013 NBA season it would have been easy for the Bulls to pack it in, but players like Noah stepped up and Chicago would go on to advance to the second round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.
Noah’s contributions have not gone unnoticed as he will make his second consecutive appearance for the Eastern Conference at the NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans next Sunday. Aside from now being a two-time NBA All Star, Noah also made the NBA’s Defensive First Team last season and he will be in the running once again this year. With the exception of the Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat, Noah and the Bulls can do some damage in the postseason against Eastern Conference teams because of their style. The Bulls are only surrendering 93.0 points per game which is second in the NBA. With Noah leading the way the Bulls are 10th in rebounding at 44.6 per game as they are tough as nails on defense.
The Bulls have yet to win an NBA Championship since Michael Jordan left in 1998, but they have been one the better teams in league for the past five seasons. The successful NBA teams tend to have a guy like Noah on their roster. The City of Chicago is commonly referred to as “The City of Broad Shoulders” and the people there can relate to Noah due to the fact that he is a blue-collar guy playing basketball in a blue-collar city. Football fans in Chicago always flocked to former Chicago Bears such as Brian Urlacher, Dick Butkus, and Mike Ditka because they embodied what Chicago was all about when they played. The same can said about Noah because he is a throwback to a different era of basketball due to the fact that he will do whatever it takes to help the Bulls win and the proof is in his body of work.
Source: Basketball-reference.com
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