Well I’ve allowed myself to cool down for a full week from the NBA draft. Needless to say I was not happy with the Bulls draft.
Why Bulls, why?
So with the number 9 pick, the Bulls take Joaquim Noah (my least favorite college player from all of last year). I began speaking of my disdain for Noah when Bill Walton was raving about him.
While I do agree that Noah is a good athlete, a hard worker, and probably would have gone like 2 or 3 last year if he had come out, here are the issues I have:
– He doesn’t make us better at what we’re bad at. He only gives us more of what we already have.
– Sure he’s passionate, but he has the most hideous shot in the world, and you know who else has a hideous shot? The other guy we’re paying a ton of money to.
– He’s just irritating, and I don’t want to have to root for him.
– Oh and he’s basically just an energetic Tyson Chandler, who we just got rid of last offseason.
It’s just a bad pick, and I don’t care what Bilas says. I hope I’m wrong I really do. But for my money, I would have taken Spencer Hawes. He’s not as good of an athlete as Noah, but he’s better at what we need. It’s easier to teach Hawes defense, then to teach Noah how to shoot.
So from my point of view, here’s the two ideal scenarios that make this pick okay:
1 – Paxson really thinks he can get Kobe, and he won’t have to give up the farm. In other words we would probably give up Noccioni, Gordon, PJ Brown (sign and trade), and Tyrus Thomas. That would give us a starting five of Heinrich, Kobe, Deng, Wallace, and Noah. I could handle that, because having the best player in basketball in your backcourt makes our lack of offense underneath somewhat acceptable. You can’t do that with Gordon in Kobe’s place. (or at least you can’t do that and get past the second round of the playoffs)
2 – Paxson uses Noah in a deal for Garnett or Gasol. If Paxson knows that Memphis or Minnesota were very interested in Noah, he might be able to use him in a trade, packaging Noccioni and Duhon more than likely (for Garnett we’d have to toss in at least one more player, possibly two if one of those isn’t Gordon). I’ve actually already heard trade rumors for Gasol, so this could very well be the scenario. We shall see.
So it has to be one of those two for this pick to be okay with me. If we just basically have the same team as last year + Noah, this next year will be identical to last year (ie making the playoffs, and losing shortly after). In fact, if we can’t hold onto PJ Brown (which I’m highly doubting), things may be even worse this year, because Noah can’t offer the same offense Brown did (this is assuming that Tyrus doesn’t somehow develop an offensive game over the summer).
There’s still a lot of offseason yet, so who knows what’s going to happen, but right now I’m less than excited after this draft.
ok, well u mentioned Noah’s bad shooting technique twice, and personally i think it looks weird too but at least it goes in. Make me think of Shawn Marion for the Suns who shot it also ugly but goes in a lot. You also mentioned that he is just going to give what u have (for now.) Ben Wallace is what, 32, i don’t think he is going to play much longer and that is when Noah will come in.
At least it goes in? When does it go in? I’m exaggerating a little bit, it’s not like he’s as inaccurate as Ben Wallace, and his numbers aren’t too bad, but in the tourney last year, I saw him miss a lot of really ugly shots (maybe I was just watching at the wrong time). The thing that just made me nervous with that is that I can’t imagine that ugly shot going in very often in the NBA, but who knows. I really do hope I’m wrong. If he turns out to be as solid of a player as Marion (who’s shot is ridiculously hideous), I’ll be very happy.
And yes you are right that he is a Ben Wallace replacement, but while we have Wallace and before he’s done (which is probably in two seasons, if not next season), does Noah really help us win a title now? In my opinion no.