Joakim Noah

• 1. Introduction

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  Joakim Simon Noah was born in New York on the 25th of February, 1985. He played professional basketball for more than a decade. Though most of his career unfolded in the United States, he wore the colors of the France national team. At the University of Florida, he helped win back-to-back NCAA championships in 2006 and 2007. The Chicago Bulls then made him the ninth overall pick in the 2007 NBA draft. He became a two-time NBA All-Star and was named to the All-NBA First Team in 2014. That same year, he was also named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year. Behind those headline honors sits a family that was already famous before he ever touched a basketball. His shooting motion was regularly called awkward, and it even drew a joke from a sitting President. And his career arc swung from a record-setting run of triple-doubles in Chicago to a very different chapter in New York, where a big free-agent contract would not go the way anyone expected.

• 2. A Family of Champions

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  Before Noah was born, his mother, Cécilia Rodhe, had already been crowned Miss Sweden and had finished as fourth runner-up at the 1978 Miss Universe pageant. His father, Yannick Noah, was a French singer who had also reached world number three in tennis, winning the French Open in 1983. His grandfather, Zacharie Noah, played professional football in Cameroon and won the Coupe de France in 1961. The family lived in Paris from 1988 to 1998, and Noah returned to New York City at age 13. In Paris, he played youth basketball for the Levallois Sporting Club. He later attended high school at the United Nations International School, Poly Prep Country Day School, and The Lawrenceville School. Rivals.com rated him a four-star recruit for the 2004 class, ranking him the 19th-best power forward and the 75th-best player in the nation.

• 3. Back-to-Back in Gainesville

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  Billy Donovan gave Noah an athletic scholarship to the University of Florida, where he joined a 2004 recruiting class of four freshmen who would transform the Gators program. As a freshman in 2004-05, Noah played just 9.4 minutes a game, averaging 3.5 points and 2.5 rebounds. Donovan moved him from power forward to center for the 2005-06 season, replacing Al Horford in the middle. In that new role, Noah led the team with 14.2 points and 2.4 blocks a game, and ranked second on the roster with 7.1 rebounds, just behind Horford's 7.6. Nearly unknown at the start of that season, his draft stock rose so fast that he had declared for the 2006 NBA draft by the tournament's end. At the Gators' championship celebration, though, Noah joined Horford and teammate Corey Brewer in announcing they would return for their junior year instead. The decision paid off. Noah was named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament's Minneapolis Regional after posting 26 points, 15 rebounds and 5 blocks in a win over top-seeded Villanova. On the 3rd of April, 2006, he helped Florida beat UCLA 73-57 for the school's first NCAA basketball championship, adding 16 points, 9 rebounds and a championship-game record 6 blocks. He was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. With five returning starters the next season, Florida opened its title defense behind Noah's 17 points and 12 rebounds in a win over Jackson State. Against Purdue in the second round, he managed only 9 points and 9 rebounds, one of just three tournament games in which he fell short of double-digit boards. He posted a tournament-high 14 points and 14 rebounds in an Elite Eight win over Oregon. In the championship game, matched up against Ohio State's Greg Oden, the player who would go first overall in the 2007 draft, Noah scored just 8 points and grabbed 3 rebounds while fighting foul trouble, though he made all six of his free throws. With the win secured, Noah, Horford and Brewer prepared to enter the 2007 NBA draft together as teammates one final time.

• 4. Learning the League

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  That same night in 2007, Al Horford went third overall to the Atlanta Hawks and Corey Brewer seventh to the Minnesota Timberwolves. That made the three Florida teammates the highest-picked trio from one college in NBA history. Noah made his regular-season debut off the bench on the 6th of November, 2007, after missing the first three games with a sprained ankle, finishing with 2 points and 4 rebounds. That January, his own teammates voted unanimously to suspend him following a confrontation with assistant coach Ron Adams. He averaged 6.7 points and 7.6 rebounds during the 2008-09 season. In Game 6 of that year's Eastern Conference first round against the Boston Celtics, with the score tied 123-123 in the third overtime, Noah stole the ball from Paul Pierce and drove for a dunk that drew Pierce's sixth foul. The Bulls won that game 128-127, though they lost the series in Game 7. During the 2009-10 season, Noah averaged 10.7 points and 11.0 rebounds but played only 64 games because of injury. In the playoffs, his averages rose to 14.8 points and 13.0 rebounds as the Bulls fell to the Cleveland Cavaliers in five games. On the 4th of October, 2010, Noah signed a five-year, $60 million contract extension with Chicago. That December, ligament damage in his hand required surgery that cost him 8 to 10 weeks, though he had been averaging 14 points and 11.7 rebounds over his prior 24 games. He returned for the team's 55th game, on the 23rd of February, scoring 7 points and grabbing 16 rebounds in just over 24 minutes. On the 22nd of February, 2012, Noah recorded his first career triple-double, with 13 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists against the Milwaukee Bucks, the first by a Bulls center since Artis Gilmore in 1977.

• 5. The Unorthodox All-Star

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  On the 7th of December, 2012, Noah set career highs with 30 points and 23 rebounds against the Detroit Pistons. Eleven days later, he recorded his second career triple-double. He scored 11 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and dished a career-high-tying 10 assists in a 100-89 win over the Boston Celtics. On the 24th of January, 2013, Noah was named a reserve for the NBA All-Star Game, representing the Bulls alongside teammate Luol Deng. He became the team's first All-Star center since Artis Gilmore in 1982. Playing 16 minutes, he scored 8 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the East lost. On the 28th of February, 2013, he posted a third triple-double. He finished with 23 points, 21 rebounds and a career-high 11 blocks in a 93-82 win over the Philadelphia 76ers. Noah joined a short list of players with a 20-20-10 game in points, rebounds and blocks since the league began tracking blocks. The others were Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shawn Bradley, Shaquille O'Neal and Elvin Hayes. Noah was the only one of them to do it while shooting 65 percent from the field.

  At a 2010 pickup game at the White House, President Barack Obama, a fellow Chicagoan, was matched up against Noah. In good-natured trash talk, Obama told him: "Where'd you get that shot? That's the ugliest shot I've ever seen." Commentators regularly called Noah's two-handed push shot "awkward" or "unorthodox." Despite the odd mechanics, Noah shot 70.0 percent from the free-throw line for his career, just slightly below the NBA average.

• 6. A Historic Defensive Run

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  From the 28th of December, 2013, through the 1st of February, 2014, Noah strung together an 18-game streak of double-digit rebounding. He averaged 13.9 boards a game over that stretch. In the middle of the run, on the 30th of January, he was named a reserve for the 2014 NBA All-Star Game for the second time in his career. He played 21 minutes, including the entire fourth quarter, scoring 8 points with 5 rebounds and 5 assists as the East won 163-155. The rebounding streak ended on the 3rd of February against the Sacramento Kings. Noah was ejected after arguing a foul call and was fined $15,000 by the NBA for verbally abusing the referees. On the 11th of February, he logged his fourth career triple-double, with 19 points, 16 rebounds and 11 assists in a 100-85 win over the Atlanta Hawks. Eight days later, he handed out 13 assists in a 94-92 road win over the Toronto Raptors. That made him the first NBA center with three 10-assist games in a season since Brad Miller of the Sacramento Kings in 2005-06. It also made him the only center with 13 assists in a single game since Vlade Divac in April 1996. On the 2nd of March, Noah recorded a fifth triple-double: 13 points, 12 rebounds and 14 assists in a 109-90 win over the New York Knicks. Those 14 assists were the most ever by a Bulls center, and the most by any NBA center since 1986. Three days later, he posted yet another triple-double, 10 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, in a 105-94 win over the Detroit Pistons. He closed the month with 120 assists, the most by an NBA center since Wilt Chamberlain had 155 in March 1968. On the 9th of April, Noah added 15 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists in a 102-87 road win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. It was his fourth triple-double of the season. On the 21st of April, 2014, the NBA made the honor official. He became the second Chicago Bull to win it, after Michael Jordan, and the first Frenchman to do so. He was also the fourth international player to win it, and only the second European. He finished fourth in that year's MVP voting.

• 7. Decline and a Costly Departure

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  On the 27th of January, 2015, Noah had a season-best game with 18 points and 15 rebounds in a 113-111 overtime win over the Golden State Warriors. He finished that season averaging 7.2 points and 9.6 rebounds, his lowest output since 2009-10. He lost his starting job to Nikola Mirotić during the 2015 preseason and opened the 2015-16 season coming off the bench for 23 straight games. After a quadruple-overtime loss to the Detroit Pistons on the 18th of December, starting center Pau Gasol did not travel to New York for the next game. Noah started in Gasol's place on the 19th of December and scored a season-high 21 points. He also grabbed 10 rebounds, six of them offensive, which made him the Bulls' career leader in offensive rebounds, passing Horace Grant's mark of 1,888. On the 23rd of December, he was ruled out for two to four weeks with a slight tear in his left shoulder, an injury from the Bulls' game against the Brooklyn Nets two days earlier. After missing nine straight games, he returned on the 11th of January with 9 rebounds and 4 assists off the bench in a loss to the Washington Wizards. On the 14th of January, he made his second start of the season in place of the injured Gasol. In 38 minutes, he posted 6 points, 16 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals and a block in a 115-111 overtime win over the Philadelphia 76ers. The very next night, he re-injured the same shoulder against the Dallas Mavericks. He was ruled out for four to six months and required surgery to stabilize it.

  On the 8th of July, 2016, Noah signed a four-year, $72 million contract with his hometown New York Knicks. It was later labeled "disastrous" and the "worst signing in franchise history." On the 27th of February, 2017, he had left knee arthroscopy to remove a loose body and was ruled out three to four weeks. On the 25th of March, 2017, he was suspended 20 games without pay for violating the league's anti-drug policy. He had tested positive for LGD-4033, a selective androgen receptor modulator, which Noah said had come from a supplement he was taking for his injuries. He had not played since the 4th of February and was already likely to miss the Knicks' final 10 games with a knee injury. Unaware he had violated the policy, Noah did not appeal, and the suspension carried into the first 10 games of the following season. On the 12th of April, 2017, doctors determined he needed surgery for a torn rotator cuff in his left shoulder, with four to six months of rehabilitation ahead. The Knicks activated him on the 27th of November, 2017, his first action since February. He entered the game against the Portland Trail Blazers in the second quarter for a three-minute stint, making his only shot attempt and grabbing a rebound. Two days later, he was assigned for one day to the Westchester Knicks of the NBA G League, playing in a loss to the Maine Red Claws. In January 2018, Noah went into exile from the team after a heated verbal clash with coach Jeff Hornacek. He appeared in just seven games that season, averaging 5.7 minutes off the bench. The Knicks released him on the 13th of October, 2018, using the stretch provision. The move saved the team $12.6 million in salary-cap space for 2019. Noah still had $38 million left on his contract and was reluctant to give any of it up. That standoff delayed the release, as the Knicks tried to negotiate a bigger buyout.

• 8. Beyond the Court

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  On the 4th of December, 2018, Noah signed with the Memphis Grizzlies for the rest of the season. On the 9th of February, 2019, he posted season highs of 19 points and 14 rebounds in a 99-90 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. Two weeks later, on the 22nd of February, he scored 22 points, including 12 free throws, with 11 rebounds in a loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. On the 9th of March, 2020, Noah signed a 10-day contract with the Clippers, then a multi-year deal on the 28th of June. The Clippers waived him that December. Noah announced his retirement from professional basketball on the 1st of March, 2021. On the 28th of October, 2021, the Chicago Bulls hosted "Joakim Noah Night" in his honor and named him a team ambassador.

  Although Noah held citizenship in France, the United States and Sweden, he chose to represent France, saying it was the country he wanted to play for. He made his senior France national team debut on the 24th of July, 2009, in a friendly against Austria, scoring 16 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. He joined the French squad at EuroBasket 2011. A serious ankle injury during the 2012 NBA playoffs kept him off France's roster for the London Olympics that summer, and he said he needed more time to rehabilitate.

  In 2010, Noah and his mother, an artist, founded the Noah's Arc Foundation to help children express themselves through arts and sports, with a particular focus on at-risk youth in Chicago. Registered as a United Nations non-governmental organization, the foundation was granted special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council in 2015. Noah began dating Brazilian model Lais Ribeiro in July 2018, and the couple got engaged at Burning Man in September 2019. They married in Ribeiro's native Brazil, in the town of Trancoso, on the 13th of July, 2022. In June 2024, on his first visit to the Philippines, Noah served as a global liquor brand ambassador, running an NBA Jr. clinic at the Gatorade Hoops Center and playing pickup basketball with young Filipino players in Mandaluyong. There, he reminisced about his long friendship with Lenny Cooke, who had played in the Philippine Basketball Association in the 2000s.