'Jo was all heart': What the magnetic, trash-talking, fearless Joakim Noah meant to the Chicago Bulls

Donovan punished Noah and Lee by making them run at 6 a.m. the next day. It would not be the last time. On Fridays, strength coaches concocted dawn torture sessions for everyone: lifting, running hills, running hills while carrying weights.

Coaches soon discovered they needed to bring a trash can. Noah went so hard, so relentlessly, he often vomited.

"He'd puke, and 30 seconds later, he'd be right back at it," says Larry Shyatt, then an assistant at Florida. "I'd never seen an athlete drive himself beyond exhaustion like that."

"There were a couple of times we went hard the night before," Brewer says, laughing. "That might have played a part."

Some mornings, Noah would run into the gym shouting toward the coaches' offices: Who wants to work out Joakim? "And these weren't just getting shots up," Shyatt says. Noah asked coaches to put him through defensive drills, and shouted their catchphrases back at them: Squeaky feet! Fingers up!

"He inspired me," Horford says.

It didn't earn Noah much playing time as a freshman. The competition was too fierce. Noah caught mononucleosis. He had trouble remembering plays; in rehearsing sets, Horford sometimes escorted Noah to the right spots.

Late that season, a despondent Noah approached Donovan and admitted confidantes were suggesting he transfer. Donovan urged him to stay. Noah channeled his disappointment into work.

"That year made him a better player," Brewer says.

It is that work ethic the Chicago Bulls celebrate Thursday at Joakim Noah Night -- a reunion of old friends and a tribute to a career that petered out in a way Noah did not envision when he was a magnetic, trash-talking, irritant Defensive Player of the Year and All-Star. He is at peace.

"The last five years were the best thing that happened to me," Noah says. "It helps me appreciate the good times. When it's over, you realize all you have is your memories and your friends. I share a lot of stories with a lot of guys. That's what I'm looking forward to tonight -- meeting with the guys, drinking some drinks, and talking some s---."

THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER his checkered freshmen season, Noah was at rock bottom -- his celebrated return to the hometown New York Knicks unraveling amid surgeries to his knee and right shoulder, and a 20-game suspension for violating the NBA's anti-drug policy.

"I can't do this anymore," Noah told Fabrice Gautier, a French osteopath who has treated Noah. "I'm going to retire." Noah could not lift his right arm.

Four years earlier, in 2013, Gautier had helped Noah achieve perhaps the crowning moment of his career: leading the injury-riddled Bulls, missing Derrick Rose and Luol Deng, to an upset road victory over the Brooklyn Nets in Game 7 of their first-round series. Several of Noah's family members and his childhood coach and mentor, Tyrone Green, attended the game.

Entering the series, Noah was dealing with a crippling bout of plantar fasciitis. "I could barely walk to go to the bathroom," he says. At some point -- either ahead of Brooklyn's Game 1 win or after it -- Noah and his inner circle remember Chicago higher-ups calling to broach the idea of Noah shutting it down. (John Paxson, then the Bulls' general manager, says he does not recall the specific conversation.) Noah refused. "We worked our asses off," he says. "It meant too much to play at home [in New York] in front of family."

"Jo was all heart," says Tom Thibodeau, the Bulls' coach then.

Gautier was in New York to work on another player, and Noah asked if he might steal some of Gautier's time. "His body was a mess," Gautier says. "I was afraid I would not be able to help."

Noah's foot improved. The Bulls took an improbable 3-2 lead, only for the Nets to win Game 6 in Chicago -- forcing Game 7 in Brooklyn. The winner would travel to Miami to face the Heat.

Noah was stewing in the locker room after Game 6 when Thibodeau entered for what Noah presumed would be a long speech. "It's always long with Thibs," Noah says.

Thibodeau stood before them: "Pack for Miami."

"And then he walked out," Noah says. "I'll never forget that s---."

Noah closed out the Nets with 24 points, 14 rebounds, and six blocks. "There were times running up and down the court where I couldn't feel my legs," Noah says. "I was floating."

One year later, Green -- who Noah considers a surrogate father -- died suddenly.

"You don't understand the gift you gave me with that series," Noah told Gautier. "I was able to show [Green and his family] all the work I've been doing."

Gautier wanted to help Noah again in the summer of 2017 after surgeries torpedoed Noah's Knicks tenure -- to help Noah "retire on his own terms," Gautier says.

Progress was slow. Noah was scuffling during one early workout at Pepperdine University when Dwyane Wade unexpectedly set up shop at the opposite end of the gym. Noah did not want his old Miami foe seeing him diminished. "I was just playing this guy in the conference finals, and now I can barely move," Noah says. "I was embarrassed."

And then suddenly, without warning or approach, Wade began repeating, "Stay with it! Stay with it!"

"I'll never forget that," Noah says. "God damn, we used to talk so much s--- to each other. It was almost like, 'F--- this dude, I can't even be around this dude.' And then just little words from the other side of the court. That was a turning point. When you're in between the lines, there's no friends. Outside of it, there's respect." (Through a spokesperson, Wade said he remembers the encounter.)

"Competition has brought out the most beautiful sides of me, but also the most terrible sides. That's the beauty of competition. It's real. It's emotions at their rawest. It's some new-age gladiator s---, and I played that way."

Joakim Noah

Noah played seven games in 2017-18 before New York waived him in October 2018. Noah was out of the league until the Memphis Grizzlies offered a life raft.

To the surprise of some, Noah was a key contributor -- defending hard, dishing dimes from the elbows like old times, bringing energy in practice. He wasn't the same, but he could still help a team.

"I'm more proud of [that season in Memphis]," Noah told me in 2019, "than I was when I was an All-Star."

AT THAT FIRST All-Star Game, in 2013, Kevin Garnett, then with the Boston Celtics, pulled Noah aside to congratulate him, Noah recalls. Garnett was among Noah's childhood idols, but when Noah introduced himself during a game in his rookie season in 2007, Garnett profanely shooed him away.

"That moment made me realize there are no friends in battle," Noah says.

Garnett's softening six years later softened Noah's day-to-day approach too.

"It meant a lot," Noah says. "I realized I was taking this energy -- F--- this dude, f--- that dude -- and carrying it around every day. [Garnett] made me realize, keep that s--- on the court."

The Celtics-Bulls rivalry had exploded in 2009, when the Bulls took the defending champions -- missing Garnett due to injury -- the distance in an epic first-round series. Noah punctuated Chicago's Game 6 win with a steal and coast-to-coast dunk on Paul Pierce, one of the iconic moments of his career.

"I dunked it on Pierce's neck," Noah says.

Noah's energy and chatter annoyed the Celtics, and the animosity became mutual. "I don't talk to that guy," Noah says of Pierce.

"I hated him," says Thibodeau, then an assistant with Boston.

That was Noah's first taste of playoff basketball, and he craved more. "In the regular season, some people are coasting, playing for contracts, all this extra s---," Noah says. "When you get to the playoffs, that stuff gets out the door and you just gotta let your nuts hang. You're either gonna turn up, or you're gonna quiver. That series made me work that much harder."

He added a gym to his home that summer. He circled Boston games on the calendar. He even began blaring "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins during workouts, because he remembered the Celtics playing it during that 2009 series. (Noah may be conflating Boston and Miami; the Heat have long played that song before tipoffs. But Boston officials say they used it during fourth quarters of close games in the 2009 playoffs.)

The next season was the only full one Noah played with teammate Brad Miller, but their connection altered Noah's career. After one practice, Miller -- wearing sandals and chewing a "big-ass dip," Noah says -- pulled Noah aside to go through passing reads from the elbows.

"I'm a hippie and he's a country redneck, but I could not have found a better brother," Noah says. "It was 10 minutes, and it changed my entire life."

Chicago lost in the first round again, but hoarded cap space for two max-level superstars. LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Wade were free agents. All three met with the Bulls. Noah lobbied Bosh. "When Chris came on his visit, I thought it was a done deal," Noah says. "I thought he'd take Dwyane, and if those two come, we'll get LeBron."

Noah reached out to James. "He didn't pick up," Noah says. "I was like, either way we're gonna be good. Come with us or don't, whatever." The trio joined up in Miami.

The Bulls hired Thibodeau, and jetted to 62-20 behind a ferocious defense -- Thibodeau its architect, Noah its anchor.

PRACTICES AND SHOOTAROUNDS were long. The Bulls ran through sets -- their own and opponents' -- over and over, with Thibodeau sometimes forcing players to sprint to half court after each repetition, players recall. Noah, still bad at remembering plays, often grew impatient.

He fumed during a water break at shootaround that season before facing the last-place Cleveland Cavaliers. Thibodeau noticed Noah's anger, and walked over.

Noah shouted: "You're making me hate basketball!" says Kyle Korver, a Bull from 2010 to '12. Thibodeau responded in kind.

"That must have happened 20 times," Noah says. "I would always tell Thibs, 'If we weren't winning, I would hate you.' And he'd be like, 'You know what? I feel the same.'"

"Jo was always emotional," Thibodeau says. "Most of the time it was positive."

Noah was the only player -- and maybe the only player or coach -- willing to bark back at Thibodeau. During one offseason, Noah worked daily at the team's practice facility with Rick Brunson, an assistant coach. Thibodeau was always in his office, and could not resist venturing out to help. After several days, Noah took a stand, Brunson recalls: "Yo, motherf---er, I'm not coming anymore unless you stay in your office. Rick and I got this."

Brunson laughs at the story. Korver stifled laughter at that shootaround. Even though the arguments were intense, Noah's rejoinders to Thibodeau lightened the mood, players and coaches recall. Noah said what others were thinking, and he was funny doing it. Without Noah's spirit, the pressure might have crushed the Bulls.

"People think the energy guy is, 'Oh, grab some rebounds!' but it's more than that," Noah says. "The energy guy means making sure morale is good. Sometimes you lose a couple of games, and teams splinter. No. Let's go out. F--- watching a movie in your room and talking to your wife about how much you hate this bulls---. Let's go eat and have a few drinks."

(There was also raw, urgent energy. As an opponent, Lee begrudgingly admired Noah's habit of sprinting the floor every possession "even though they were never going to give him the ball," he says.)

The Bulls advanced to the conference finals to meet Miami -- and the stars who spurned them. Noah had been eyeing that matchup. "He wanted to be the guy to take LeBron down," says Alex Perris, a childhood friend who became Noah's personal trainer.

Car rides with Noah to those Miami-Chicago showdowns were silent -- a contrast to the usual loud music and jokes, say Perris and Matt Rosenberg, a lifelong friend and Noah's closest advisor throughout his career. In facing James, Noah leaned on advice from his father -- Yannick Noah, a tennis pro and French Open champion.

"His dad told him, 'When I looked across the net and saw Ivan Lendl, Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors -- I knew I wasn't better than them,'" Donovan recalls. '"What I had was my competitiveness.'"

The Bulls blitzed Miami in Game 1 in Chicago. When Noah exited the locker room, he was taken aback to see Miami players still milling around. "You lose and you're trying to get out quick," Noah says. "They were making a statement: 'You guys beat us, but we're not going anywhere. We're comfortable in your building.'"

Miami won the next four games. Noah did not play up to his standards. In Game 3, cameras caught Noah shouting an anti-gay slur at a Heat fan who -- according to Noah and other players -- crossed the line in taunting the Bulls. Noah, who grew up in a liberal and multicultural household, apologized right away. The NBA fined him $50,000.

"I would always tell Thibs, 'If we weren't winning, I would hate you.' And he'd be like, 'You know what? I feel the same.'"

Joakim Noah

After the series, Noah conceded the Heat were good but labeled them "Hollywood as hell." His distaste for James seemed personal.

"Competition is not pretty, and that's why people like it," Noah says. "There are beautiful moments and terrible moments. Competition has brought out the most beautiful sides of me, but also the most terrible sides. That's the beauty of competition. It's real. It's emotions at their rawest. It's some new-age gladiator s---, and I played that way."

He has never established a post-playing relationship with James, and does not regret going right at him. "There's a lot of things I respect about LeBron," Noah says. "But between those lines, nah, f--- that."

THE BULLS FIGURED they would face the Heat and over and over. That summer, Noah traveled back to Florida and asked his college coaches to help him perfect passing out of the short roll -- a counter to Miami's blitzing defense.

Chicago earned the No. 1 seed in 2011-12, boasting the league's fattest point differential and the best offense of the Thibodeau era. But up by 12 late in Game 1 of the first round, Rose tore his left ACL.

The Bulls never regained their standing. There would be no epic rivalry with Miami. "We really believed we were gonna win that championship," Noah says. "That was our time. Derrick represented that much hope. Every time he stepped onto the court, we had the most special player in the world. That's a lot of hope to carry on one person."

Rose, still among Noah's closest friends, was never the same.

"When I found out Derrick tore his ACL, I remember the smells, who I was with, everything," Noah says. "I had the same feeling of when I saw the plane hit the tower [on Sept. 11, 2001]. People will be like, 'He's crazy for saying that.' No. I'm telling you how I felt."

There were highs to come -- including that Game 7 in Brooklyn -- but Chicago has not advanced past the second round since 2011. In 2014, Noah was an All-Star again, won Defensive Player of the Year, and finished fourth in MVP voting. That was his last All-Star appearance.

Even as his physical ability faded and the spotlight shifted, Noah never lost his love for team camaraderie. He would always be the guy who initially refused to participate in a magazine feature at Florida unless the publication photographed his entire team -- the guy who apologized to teammates at the Final Four, when media swarmed Noah but ignored the rest of them, Donovan recalls.

Mike Dunleavy Jr., who joined the Bulls in 2013, remembers Noah's trash-talking at the team's pingpong tournament. "He would never let me live down losing to him and [Rose]," Dunleavy says. "He said my country club ass lost to two brothers from the streets."

He entertained teammates for entire games by calling Tony Brothers, an NBA referee, "catfish" -- because Noah thought Brothers resembled one, Dunleavy recalls. ("Shout out, Catfish," Noah says today.)

As the post-Thibodeau Bulls meandered, Noah's concern went beyond the team's mediocre record; he grasped to preserve what remained of its culture. On a visit in 2015, I found Noah borderline distraught about the team's evaporating chemistry and on-court identity -- and devoted to cultivating Jimmy Butler as the next franchise leader.

In his twilight, Noah took extra interest in young players.

When Bobby Portis struggled to crack Chicago's rotation as a rookie, Noah told him to be ready -- that his time would come. Portis thought back to that advice in last season's conference semifinals, when the Milwaukee Bucks benched him against Brooklyn. Portis reentered the rotation in later rounds, and became a hero of Milwaukee's title run.

"If I had stopped working, I wouldn't have been ready," Portis says. "Those words from Joakim stuck with me."

At Noah's last stop -- the Orlando, Florida, bubble with the LA Clippers -- he befriended Ivica Zubac, tutoring him and taking him out for wine after wins. "I love him," Zubac says. (A delightful late-career finding: the Clippers' shot-tracking data showed Noah's infamous sidespin tornado jumper was the straightest -- from hand to rim -- in the team's database, sources say.)

The Clippers denouement almost didn't happen. In September 2019, Noah slashed an Achilles tendon dragging a steel ice bath across the floor. Rosenberg, Noah's close friend, was walking in Chelsea when Noah called. Both men wept.

Noah kept fighting, starting upper-body work the day after surgery. That fight defined him, and it is the thing Noah hopes fans will remember most.

"I grew up a privileged kid," Noah says. "Guys I went up against were always calling me silver spoon. But when you look at the record books for the Chicago Bulls, I'm [No. 1] for offensive rebounds. That's dirty work s---. You have to have some demons to go get that one. I'm really proud to be the guy who did that dirty work for the Chicago Bulls."