Just insane -- Gators' Noah slipping in public's eye
Sure, Florida center Joakim Noah looks like he is the lovechild of Scottie Pippen and a giraffe. Or that he resembles Clay Aiken's fourth cousin on his mom's side.
And sure, Noah's chest-bumping gets a little tiresome. His finger pointing, fake gun shooting in the air after a big basket is quite 1980s. So there's that.
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| Joakim Noah was the toast of the nation in March; now, he's third fiddle. (Getty Images) |
Sure, all of that is true. But none of it explains the incredibly silly phenomenon happening right now when it comes to Noah, still the best big man in basketball, despite the emergence this season of two young stars who are having their faces licked by NBA scouts and the media.
If you asked almost anyone with a scintilla of basketball knowledge at the beginning of the season who are the best three big men in college they would say, in no certain order: Greg Oden from Ohio State, Noah and Kevin Durant from Texas.
Within the past month, however, that has changed. Noah is now being left out of The Great Big Man Debate. I'll take Noah over Oden and Durant, but in the minds of many others Noah is running a distant third. To others, Noah does not even belong in the same sentence with the other two.
It's incredible, really. As Florida continues one of the best runs in recent college basketball history -- a national championship followed by the Gators' current 16-game winning streak -- Noah's stock has seemingly dropped. Usually the reverse happens.
A backlash has almost developed against Noah. Just look at some of the things written and said recently about the big three. Analysts and media can't wait to praise Oden and Durant while Noah has been eliminated from the greatness conversation. My good friend Pete "Stick to Football" Prisco thinks Noah is overrated.
Part of the problem is the media and our notoriously shrimpy attention spans. We love fresh faces and stories and are terrible at keeping perspective. Some in the media forget just how much of a talented wrecking ball Noah was during the NCAA Tournament last year. A wrecking ball that earned him MOP honors in the Minneapolis Regional and the Final Four.
There is something else at work here. Noah does not fit the stereotypical model of the classic big man. Oden does. He's an imposing, mean shot blocker. He looks like someone hit him in the face with a bag of quarters. He looks like Ken Norton.
Durant is Kevin Garnett, minus a couple inches. Both Oden and Garnett used in the same sentence is something easily digested by the media and NBA personnel honchos.
The media and to some degree the NBA itself have a difficult time putting their arms around players like Noah. They cannot connect the dots from his eccentric looks to his great play. They see the wild flowing hair, the erudite personality, how well spoken Noah is, and they think soft or weird. Or tennis pro.
What everyone should be thinking is greatness. Noah has put a clown suit on almost every big man he has faced over the past two seasons.
