OldSchoolNoBull wrote:Djoker wrote:DPOY
3. Joakim Noah - Anchored an elite Bulls team on D.
Just wanted to address this.
As a lifelong Bulls fan, I can tell you that Joakim Noah is one of the most beloved Bulls this side of Michael and Scottie in our fanbase. Personally, he is one of my favorite basketball players of the last 25 years. Rose was the best player on that Thibs Bulls team, but Noah was the soul, the emotional and vocal leader. So maybe I am overcompensating for my own personal bias when I say this, but...I think it's an overstatement to say he anchored that defense.
First off, he only played 48 games - he missed a big portion of the regular season with a shoulder injury.
Second, it was just a great defensive team. Here are DRAPMs for the relevant defensive players on the team:
Regular Season
Luol Deng: 2.21
Ronnie Brewer: 2.98
Omer Asik: 2.52(albiet he only played 12mpg)
Kurt Thomas: 0.98(this is important because it's nearly a 1.0 DRAPM and he started 37 games, most while Noah was out)
Joakim Noah: 0.71
Taj Gibson: 0.68
CJ Watson: 2.06
Keith Bogans: 0.57
Playoffs
Taj Gibson: 2.88
Keith Bogans: 1.39
Luol Deng: 1.34
Ronnie Brewer: 1.31
Kurt Thomas: 1.13(although he didn't play much)
Omer Asik: 0.96
CJ Watson: 0.10
Joakim Noah: -0.08
Now, I certainly think Joakim was a more impactful defender than those DRAPMs for him indicate, but given how much time he missed during the season and how stacked the team was defensively, and the fact that it was the first season for Thibs, who was and is a defensive-coordinator type coach who was ahead of his time and who had just come off architecting historic defenses in Boston, I am inclined to think the Bulls' #1 defense this season was a team effort top-to-bottom and not the result of any one player anchoring it more than another.
I would say Jo probably has a stronger argument in 13 and 14 when the team was weaker overall due to Rose being out and a bunch of bench guys having been let go(Noah won DPOY in 14 and came in 4th in 13; he came in 15th this season).
And again, I say this as someone who, I guarantee you, is a bigger Noah fan than anyone here.
Thanks. Edited. Didn't see that Noah missed so many games for some reason.