The Return of the Point Center Offense: Bulls Re-Signing Joakim Noah

Joakim Noah is a special player whom John Paxson likes and hopefully they can work something out. The Bulls need to re-sign Noah to a fair contract and get players that can help him perform a role from his better days in Chicago.

If other players on the Bulls team polarize fans to choose sides, like Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose, or for me, Doug McDermott over Jimmy Butler, only one player among them all is the consensus heart and soul of Chicago as a hardworking, scrappy and tenacious team that wins thru hard work and amazing talent.

That player is Joakim Noah.

Noah’s breakout season in 2013-14 for the Bulls when he willed the team to make it as far as they could in the playoffs, in spite of former Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau being notoriously set in his ways that he rode all of his players to injury.

Re-signing Joakim Noah gives the Bulls an extra assist man on the court (aside from Rose) who takes the trouble out of deciding how to run each and every half-court set. Noah was groomed by Thibodeau to run the “point center offense”; a variation on the triangle offense and some of the Spurs offense sets where the center positions himself at the high post (top of the key) and looks for back-cutting players or shooters who get open off screening traps (elevator) or movement traps (Hoiball). It is less mechanical than the triangle offense and creates a shot at the basket faster because the point center can look over the defense and whip a pass to the best offensive option.

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Despite his shortcomings, Thibodeau used his players’ best skills and was resourceful with Noah to create scoring chances.

With Fred Hoiberg, last season was a disaster because the team never had a passing point guard to set up the Bulls shooters on run-outs, fast break attacks and especially when open on half-court sets.

His laid-back approach may have cost him the season for not being staunch enough to Butler and Pau Gasol to play roles within the faster system.

This year set back all of the Bulls shooters for waiting for kick-out passes that never came and even made Tony Snell an easy scapegoat among fans who could only see Jimmy Butler do “give-me-the-ball-and-get-out-of-the-way-unless-you’re-Pau”-type things.

Practically one-third of the season was spent watching Snell or Nikola Mirotic start and get empty minutes of production because no one was passing to them. It was the same thing with McDermott, who is practically the Bulls best scorer (not reflected by the stat sheet because someone else is hogging the ball and not passing to him); even better than Gasol or Rose. They could have gotten lead cushions from McDermott scoring a lot and that would have made games easier to win if the offense was run through him instead of Butler or Gasol.

It was Noah, who on his own initiative (prior to suffering his season-ending shoulder injury). recognized that McDermott was a knockdown shooter (some less astute Bulls followers thought he was just some white guy three-point dude like Jud Buechler) and set him up with butt-screens to give McDermott some points when the starters were mostly running pick-and-roll and not following the script to move the ball into the best scoring option.

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Noah even made Tony Snell a 20-point rotation player during Thibodeau’s last season by encouraging him and setting him up for threes when he was in rhythm and cutting to the hoop for slashing drives. This is where analytics can sometimes make a player like Butler look precious when the eye test. Watching what plays out on the court reveals a much better picture of what is going on.

Noah gets the team going when plays break down and he helps scorers spike their output when they are on a streak. As the point center offense anchor, he is a crucial part of Chicago’s transition into the Hoiball era. Cristiano Felicio and Mirotic have shown flashes of being capable of running the point center offense but Noah is the veteran who can help them learn it well.

In the locker room, Noah is the glue guy that keeps the team inspired and he respects players who have earned their stature on the team.

If you saw Butler waive off Rose on the last play of the Indiana game towards the end of the season where he hit the game-winning shot like he owned the team, you get an insight into why the locker room was reportedly quiet afterwards. (Butler said it was because the guys were playing tired and hurt.)

You can see someone who has not earned his self-anointed role as leader and setting back the team for most of the season, so that he wouldn’t be embarrassed that he and Gasol can’t play a faster game like their teammates. If Noah did not get hurt and Hoiberg figured out a way to play him instead of Gasol as the closer in the fourth for the second half of the season, so many games wouldn’t be lost to Gasol’s porous defense and Jimmy’s bricks.

The Bulls’ shooters would have had a chance to contribute to the team’s offense if Noah ran the offense instead of the two-man pick-and-roll they executed and winning would have been easier than watching Butler bleed for points.

Re-signing Joakim Noah with the Bulls for the rest of his career gives Hoiberg a boost in the autopilot of his pace-and-space offense.  Aside from getting the best backup guards the Bulls can get to push and gun the offense while letting Rose rest for a more optimal minutes management of key players, GarPax should also get extra bruiser bodies to help on defense and rebounding so that Noah, Felicio and Portis don’t strain their bodies doing everything in a faster game that can seriously wear down everyone.

Watch the video above and you’ll see that the Bulls should never have let Pau Gasol play twin-post for Thibs. Noah’s triple-doubles are worth 10 times Gasol’s triple-doubles.

Next: Trade scenarios involving Jimmy Butler

Noah still has value and I hope Hoiberg never forgets what he can do.