It isn’t all over yet, but it might as well be. A longstanding figure of what it meant to be a Bull, particularly a Thibodeau Bull, Joakim Noah is on his way out. Likely, he’s headed to a bigger payday or a more serious contender. Wherever he ends up, it seems that he’s worn a Bulls jersey for the last time and so it only seems right that we take a moment to speak on the dearly departed.
I’m going to miss Joakim Noah.
I might be a little emotional right now. You see, I just finished watching The Wire a few nights back. A journey I started on Amazon Prime back in March. I had never watched The Wire before. At all. Ever.
My former roommate watched it while the final season was still airing during our college days. His distaste for going to class and my distaste for anything that wasn’t the weight room on campus drove me away from watching that show. I apologize, Nate. You were on to something.
King James Gospel
As I write this, I’m still dealing with the emotion of having watching Omar die in the least spectacular way possible. It was crushing. Even in the morgue, when he’s in the body bag with no brain in his head, I watched intently, expecting my favorite character to revivify and complete his revenge on Marlo Stanfield. It never happened. The pain of that reality was a greater emotional distress for me than tuning in to an NBA Finals game between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers only to find out that the game was determined by the time the first quarter was over.
So maybe, just maybe, what I’m feeling here is the emotion of bitter closure on Omar, on Bodie, and on the show that was nearly perfect. Actually, the first season was perfect.
When reflecting on Noah, there is only one way to view him that truly resonates with me and that is the speech of Sgt. Jay Landsman, given as a eulogy over the still living though exiled Jimmy McNulty, in the closing minutes of the series finale.
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McNulty was long a detective, true murder police. Much like Noah, he was brash and an irritant. But he was also obsessed with his work and very good at his job. So, with the help of Sgt. Landsman, I want to say a few words about Detective Noah.
“What to say about this piece of work?”
Noah was a real piece of work, wasn’t he? What an absolute lightning rod of passion, overflowing with his unique personality. Incredibly tall, made all the wilder by his hair and constantly running mouth. He was a hard worker on the court, in the weight room and in the community. His commitment to community action in the anti-violence and pro-art arenas was commendable. He really embraced what it meant to be a true Chicago Bull by embracing not just a paycheck, but an entire city.
“He was the black sheep. The permanent pariah. He asked no quarter of the bosses and none was given. He learned no lessons. He acknowledged no mistakes.”
Noah wouldn’t, and still won’t, fit into most locker rooms around the league. He called out LeBron James himself time and again. He played to win and didn’t worry about making friends with anyone who wasn’t in his locker room after the final buzzer sounded. He thrived playing under Thibodeau, a task master who expected his top talent to give everything and then give more. When injuries finally caught up to Noah and it was time for him to take a reduced role, he could not abide it. He needed to be pushed to the limit, to leave everything he had on the court, every night. He refused to acknowledge his limitations in light of injury and the need to, at least temporarily, reduce his minutes. He never backed down when it was himself or a teammate on the line, even if they were the instigator.
“He brooked no authority, he did what he wanted to do and he said what he wanted to say.”
How many times did we see Noah yelling from the bench or emphatically clapping in the face of an opponent or generally flashing the guns, then retiring them, then bringing them back again when he felt the moment was right – when he admittedly got carried away.
“I don’t give that one up unless it happens to be true. Natural po-lice.”
Noah certainly was natural NBA po-lice. He was able to protect them rim. He carried weight on the court, on the bench and in the locker room for his teammates. He kept everyone in line and enforced the Thibodeau ethos, even though year after year the team was seemingly robbed by injury. Still, he held his ground and led the team valiantly.
“…what an a***ole.”
“Despite… his defects of personality… I say this seriously: If I was laying there dead on some Baltimore street corner, I’d want it to be you, standing over me, catching the case.”
Noah was the guy you always wanted in your corner and the guy you would never want to have to deal with on the other team. He performed a gritty, invaluable role for the Bulls when Rose and Butler were developing and when they were sidelined. He was the NBA equivalent of Gennaro Gattuso for AC Milan in the mid-2000s. A wild-eyed, high motor animal that was going to tear up every square inch of the playing surface every time out there, undoubtedly looking for the win and wearing it all on his sleeve. He was consumed with passion and it was infectious. That was Gattuso, that was Noah.
“Because brother, when you were good, you were the best we had.”
How do you explain what Noah became and what he meant to the Bulls for such a long time? The guy was the heart and soul and fire of the closest thing LeBron James had a rival for several years. While he didn’t start as a top player in the league and finishes his Chicago tenure as a player with major injury concern who is arguably about to be paid more than he is worth for too long a period of time, when he was good…
He was Defensive Player of the Year and finished fourth in Most Valuable Player voting. He carried the Bulls on his back night after night while everyone hoped and prayed that Derrick Rose would return and be his old self. We didn’t get that version of Rose back, but we got the best version of Noah we could have possibly asked for. A league-best defender with an incredible touch and passing ability on the offensive end of the floor.
The Bulls will be without the player who was their heart and soul. Noah will be without the only team he has ever known. If this is how it ends, then I am thankful for what we were given and this is how I will choose to remember Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls, because we he was good, he was the best we had.