Help Us Settle a Debate: Do You Love or Hate Joakim Noah?

Veteran TBL scribe Stephen Douglas is in Chicago this week, and we spent last night at Old Town Ale House having a few beers and admiring the painted portraits of old Chicago writers, Second City performers, and naked, scandaled politicians. The Bulls-Nets game was on in the corner with no sound, and we caught Joakim Noah’s characteristically exuberant mannerisms after he had held back Jimmy Butler from fighting Joe Johnson.

I’m not a Bulls fan (or especially loyal to any NBA team, per se), but I fucking love Joakim Noah. He has a Hemi. No matter the score, opponent, or time of year, he goes so hard and his leadership has been the catalyst of his team’s continued overachievement. I don’t get caught up in the mythmaking of athletes, but the most you can hope for is sustained effort, and Noah brings that and then some every night. Even when he’s antagonistic, I think it’s pretty funny.

What’s most interesting about him, to me, is that I hated him at Florida. In the time I’ve gone from despising Noah to adoring him, he hasn’t really changed at all, but I’ve embraced him nonetheless. Anyways, I was under the impression that almost everybody feels this way. Stephen also likes him, but felt that most sports fans outside of Chicago disagree.

One thing that’s for certain is that Noah’s polarizing. Nobody is going to say, “Well, I don’t have an opinion on him one way or another.” How do y’all feel about him?