Chicago Bulls history: LeBron James ignored Joakim Noah

The Chicago Bulls struck out big time in 2010. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst recently shed some light on what happened between LeBron James and Joakim Noah.

Let’s take a quick trip back to the summer of 2010. The Chicago Bulls were coming off of two 41-41 seasons. Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah were emerging as legitimate stars in the league. Three of the league’s best players — LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — were all free agents.

Had everything played out in the Bulls’ favor, the last decade would’ve looked a lot different. For a brief moment in time, it seemed like they had a puncher’s chance of landing Wade, Bosh and James, but a few things went wrong. For starters, one of the well-known missing pieces of that puzzle was Derrick Rose. He was young and wasn’t all that involved in the sales pitch. That’s a huge problem for three superstars in their primes looking for a winning team. If the incumbent best player doesn’t seem all that interested in having you, why should you be interested in going there?

Another problem, per ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, was Joakim Noah’s “acrimonious” relationship with LeBron. In a recent ESPN article, Windhorst mentioned that Noah called LeBron the week of The Decision, attempting to sell him on Chicago, but LeBron never called Noah back.

That’s a really interesting tidbit from the story of the summer of 2010. For a while now, Bulls fans have put a large amount of blame on D-Rose for not being heavily involved in the sales pitch, but if Noah hadn’t been such a polarizing personality, would LeBron and Co. have joined Noah and Rose in the Windy City?

As outlined by Windhorst in the ESPN article, the Bulls were in a tough position to sign three stars. It would’ve been possible, but really difficult. They were more so in a position to sign two of them, and ultimately, three stars are better than two. So I don’t think it’s fair to put all of the blame on Rose or Noah. Miami simply was a better situation for championships. Plus, it’s Miami. The location alone is hard to beat.

It’s pretty obvious now, though, that the Rose-Noah combination wasn’t very enticing to James, Wade and Bosh. One of the Bulls was seemingly uninterested in joining forces and the other had a rocky relationship with the best player involved in the deal.

It shouldn’t be surprising to hear that LeBron ignored Noah’s call. They’ve riffed on the court; they’ve riffed off the court. Ultimately, they just don’t get along. LeBron is one of the most revered guys in league history (and deservedly so), but Noah simply doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to bow down to The King.

Even though it seems like the Wade-Bosh-James-Rose-Noah quintuplet was probably never going to happen, it’s still incredibly fun to think about. Can you imagine what those five guys could’ve done to the league? They would’ve gone scorched Earth on the entire NBA, leaving no survivors. The skills of Rose, Wade, Bosh and James mixed with the intensity and competitive nature of Noah would’ve been unstoppable. It would’ve resulted in not one, not two, not three, not four, not five… You get my drift.