Don't Just Say No To Noah

So this Joakim Noah thing has gotten out of hand to the point that I feel I must somehow acknowledge it, albeit a couple days late. I seriously do not follow the Bulls closely enough to be at all knowledgeable, but with that said …

I will take Sam Smith’s word for it that whatever kind of tantrum Noah threw in practice was worth a suspension. From the coach, that is. It may have been worth two games. It may have been worth 10, for all I know. As long as the length of the suspension was determined by the coach.

Say what you will about Noah, but don’t forget that he knows how to be a champion. He did, after all, win back-to-back college championships at Florida. In the few times that I’ve watched the Bulls and seen Noah expressing frustration on the court, his outbursts always struck me as childish, but I also viewed them through the prism of his past successes and recognized that they are born of his desire to win.

The suspension handed down by the players makes me question whether any of them want that as badly as Noah. This is a group of veteran players who were slowly building a solid base of success, and then suddenly quit this year.

For that particular group to censure a rookie for actions that are intended, regardless of how misguidedly so, at further improving the team, sends a really disturbing message. This is not a team taking ownership of itself. This is a bunch of under-achievers serving retribution on someone who dared challenge them to be better.

And I don’t even want to get into what this does for Jim Boylan’s credibility. What kind of a coach just shrugs and says “OK” when a bunch of cry-babies come to him and say “we don’t want to play with that guy”? Whatever happened to “shut the fuck up”? Whatever happened to “do your goddamn job”? Whatever happened to “you just let me worry about the personnel, and you worry about getting your sorry asses back over the .400 mark”?

It’s one thing for players to plead their case when they really think they can improve the team more than a coach can. But for a coach to honor this kind of request, he simply cedes control.

The Bulls may have looked like they put all this behind them with a 30-point win on Wednesday, but as it came against the worst team in the conference, it may well be a mirage. Tougher games are coming up, and if the Bulls don’t show up for them, I say let Noah start handing out the suspensions.