One day during the spring of 2016, Joakim Noah made a surprise appearance at Poly Prep, the Brooklyn high school he had attended before NBA stardom. The school was holding an assembly to discuss gun violence, and Noah jumped in for a question-and-answer session with students on an issue important to him.
Advertisem*nt
Afterward, on a drive out from the school, Bill McNally asked Noah what he was thinking about his encroaching free agency. Noah had been an All-Star with the Bulls, but a break-up seemed likely then after nine seasons together. It would be great to go home, Noah told his old high school coach, as they rode together in McNally’s black Volvo and smiled at the thought of a homecoming.
“This was going to be his story,” McNally said. “He was so happy to be here. It really was a thing of beauty for a minute. And it’s a shame.”
The Knicks waived Noah on Saturday afternoon, ending a 27-month marriage that barely had a honeymoon period. Noah signed a four-year, $72 million contract during the debaucherous summer of 2016, got hurt then suspended during his first year with the organization, and was exiled last January after a practice altercation with then-coach Jeff Hornacek. He hasn’t been heard from since.
Those who know Noah, his friends and workout partners, say he has chosen public silence out of principle. He’d rather work alone and try to redeem himself when he can rather than speak now or over the last nine months. While the Knicks have offered small updates on his status before their separation this weekend, Noah has only been visible through Instagram posts and the spare TMZ appearance.
Noah’s absence from the team had been called a mutual one, though the team has not elaborated why an incident with its former coach would disqualify bringing him back. When asked last month why the franchise had chosen to let Noah go rather than try to bring him back and make it work, general manager Scott Perry danced around the question, saying only that they were “comfortable” with the process the Knicks and Noah’s representatives had embarked on since he left.
After Noah and the Knicks split in the middle of last season, he soon went out to Southern California and took shelter at the house of Laird Hamilton, the famed surfer and a good friend, and Gabrielle Reece, the former volleyball star and Hamilton’s wife. Noah stayed there for several months while they were still out in Hawaii.
Advertisem*nt
“You have a couple of choices when you have these sort of crossroads,” Reece said. “What I can appreciate about Joakim, from what I am have seen pretty close up: He’s taken this really seriously and participated in the parts he can control.”
She added: “If you participated in getting yourself into not-the-best situation, you gotta man up. All I know is that he loves the game, he loves the Knicks. I’m not his mom but it’s sort of like he’s doing everything in his control and power to show that and that’s been grinding away since January.”
Noah’s friends say he started training almost immediately as he got out west. He worked out regularly with Hamilton and built a routine. (Hamilton wasn’t available for comment because, Reece said, he was out swimming with sharks.) He has stayed in California for most of this sabbatical, except for occasional trips back to New York to visit friends.
The time away from the Knicks has afforded Noah his longest stretch of health in a while. He has not played more than 46 games in a season since 2014-15, due to a multitude of injuries. But he has spent this time honing his body. Chris Johnson, his trainer, said Noah is down to a 4-5 percent body fat and has regained his bounciness.
When Alex Perris, a long-time friend and his former trainer, visited him late this summer, he said he had developed a long workday — pool workouts at Hamilton’s house in the morning, afternoon basketball runs, and nightly yoga. The pool workouts, especially, were grueling.
Noah would jump into the far end of Hamilton’s pool, 11-12 feet deep, and retrieve weights as heavy as 60 pounds or then run under water with them.
“I think he’s purposefully not talking because he wants to prove it,” Perris said.
The lone sign of pique from Noah came Sept. 28, when he posted an Instagram message saying “Let me go!!! What r u waiting for!!!!” and then quickly deleted it. That was, Perris says, out of frustration because rosters had been settled by then.
Wonder what Joakim Noah might be talking about in his latest Instagram story… pic.twitter.com/mU3EU9HkTQ
— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) September 28, 2018
Noah is a free agent now and his future is uncertain. The Knicks would have preferred to trade him rather than waive him and take on the $37.8 million remaining on his contract, but any team can sign him now for the veteran’s minimum. The Timberwolves, with former coach Tom Thibodeau have long been rumored as a possible destination, but ESPN reported that the coach has no interest in reuniting.
Advertisem*nt
His friends say that Noah is focused on redeeming himself and playing well again, which would rejuvenate a career that had fallen off track after a brilliant start in Chicago. With the Bulls, Noah was a defensive savant and a playmaker from the elbow. He was the sweet-passing big man with a vibrant attitude and an idiosyncratic, but effective, game.
He signed with the Knicks in July 2016, 31, and no longer in his prime, but still attractive to team president Phil Jackson. He came aboard with Derrick Rose and Courtney Lee, trying to turn the Knicks into a playoff team over a summer. Jackson saw the acquisitions as high risk-high reward moves but believed it would be validated, pining for Noah’s leadership and defensive acumen.
Jackson had made Noah his top target and the two seemed like kindred spirits in some ways. Noah had read Jackson’s book in his adolescence. Years ago, Noah had made an impromptu trip to Jackson’s Montana home. Like Jackson, Noah sought serenity wherever he could find it, occasionally visiting and staying over on Native American reservations. He eschewed the normal confines of professional athletes, driving his Porsche into inner-city Chicago after Bulls games to drop off kids who came through his foundation.
“He’s always liked trees and big things of nature because I think it makes him feel normal-sized,” Perris said. “So he’s always loved these big, giant places.”
New York is large in its own way, with towering skyscrapers to make a 6-11 center feel small, and Noah was attracted to it too.
The path back there was meaningful to him. He had grown up in Hell’s Kitchen, gone to high school there, rooted for the Knicks, and still considered himself a New Yorker. Perris, Noah’s friend since they were teenagers, says it was “exhilarating.”
“Really, this was a kid in the stands being asked to play,” McNally said. “It’s like taking someone out of Yankee Stadium, up in the bleachers, and saying you’re the shortstop now. It wasn’t that far removed for him from being a fan of the team to being a part of that.”
(Hannah Foslien / Getty Images)
If Noah had hoped for a gilded homecoming, it soured quickly. He was injured by midseason and suspended in March for violating the league’s anti-drug policy. He played seven games in 2017-18 before a practice incident with Hornacek last January in Denver, in which expletives and light shoves were involved, according to a witness. Noah left the team for “personal reasons,” the Knicks announced, and he hasn’t been back since.
Advertisem*nt
His time with the Knicks ended up more disappointing than anything. Noah never returned to his heights with the Bulls, and never played long enough, or well enough, to endear himself to fans. Over the last few months a player who was so effusive and emotional on the court was reduced to a cap figure — an indignity that dehumanizes athletes to nothing more than a budget line item — andKnicks no longer had a place for him on the roster with several big men ahead of him on the depth chart.
“This is like his place, his people, and for people to not like him because of business things, it’s hurtful … These are human beings playing these games,” McNally said. “They have feelings. This isn’t the circus.”
It was a wasted opportunity, those who know Noah believe. When he signed with the Knicks they saw the chance for a feel-good story of a hometown kid made good putting a coda to his career. Instead he was one more big contractual albatross that has continuously dogged the Knicks since the teams he rooted for. And now he’s gone, looking for a chance at redemption.
(Top photo: Raymond Hall/GC Images)
Mike Vorkunov is the national basketball business reporter for The Athletic. He covers the intersection of money and basketball and covers the sport at every level. He previously spent three-plus seasons as the New York Knicks beat writer. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeVorkunov
