So, Noah is one of my favorite players on the Bulls' current roster.  I wanted him or Al Horford in the draft that we got Tyrus (this was before Horford and Noah announced they wouldn't be opting for the draft).  The two most common comparisons I've heard for Noah as an NBA player are Anderson Varejao and a better passing Marcus Camby.  Since Scotter's excellent post on the similarities between Tyrus and Shawn Kemp in their statistical profiles through two years, I've been thinking about how the other players on our very young team project out as NBA players given what they've already shown us in their, admittedly, brief careers.  In that spirit, I'm going to attempt in this space to take a look at how Noah compares to Marcus Camby when both were 22 year old rookies.  I make no claims of being a stats expert and I encourage Matt, Scotter, Jivas, YaoPau, hscs, and the other statheads among you to correct me when I, inevitably, err.

When I began to think about looking at Noah's future with the Bulls and what his potential might be, I was struck by the fact that by several measures, he was the Bulls best player as a rookie.  Namely, adjusted plus / minus, Roland Rating (I don't count Veektor, forgive me), WSAA (Win Shares Above Average), which is a product of his very good ORtg and DRtg (2nd on the team in both) and WS/40 (Berri's statistic is biased towards big men, so it doesn't tell us quite as much given that Noah is a Center).  Given all these different measures of production telling me that Noah was the best player on this squad for the last year as a rookie made me think two things: 1) man, the Bulls were really bad last year and 2) this Noah kid might really have something.  Granted, his PER of 15.5 isn't going to wow anyone, but consider that in the shot-clock era only 25 rookies have posted a PER of 15+ in over 20 mpg as Centers.  In that group you have guys like Arvydas Sabonis (age 31), David Robinson (age 24), Dean Garrett (age 30), and Marc Jackson (age 26) who should probably be thrown out because they were basically grown men who just happened to come into the league later for various reasons.  So that narrows the list down to just 21 rookie centers in the shot clock era who've posted PERs above 15 (or above the league average).  When viewed through that lens Joakim's rookie season seems more impressive to me.  PER is not the be-all-end-all statistic and I think the other catch-ally statistics I've referenced above, supplementing his PER, make the case that given how difficult it is for rookie centers to be above average in the league, Noah's season this year was pretty great.  Now, on to the real reason I'm here, namely finding suitable projections for Noah's likely career path based on his first season compared with one of his historical peers: Marcus Camby.

Camby and Noah

When Noah first burst onto the scene and into my consciousness during the 2005-06 NCAA basketball season, a fairly common scouting comparison for him has been a better-passing Marcus Camby, which seems to be a good subjective fit.  Both are rather lightweight centers with shot-altering capabilities that rebound the ball very well and can score a little bit.  This comparison has stuck and seems to continue to be fairly accurate and born out in the statistics (atleast for their rookie NBA seasons, anyway, I'm not getting into their college stats).  Their basic rookie year per 40 min pace adjusted statistics via DraftExpress look like this:

Year    Name    GP    Min    Pts    FG    FGA    FG%    FTM    FTA    FT%    3Pt    3PtA    3P%    Off    Def    TOT    Asts    Stls    Blks    TOs    PFs

1996/97    Camby    63    30.1    19.4    7.8    16.1    48.2    3.8    5.5    69.3    0.0    0.3    14.3    2.7    5.5    8.2    2.0    1.4    2.7    2.8    4.4

2007/08    Noah    74    20.7    12.5    4.5    9.4    48.2    3.4    5.0    69.1    0.0    0.0    0.0    4.5    6.2    10.7    2.2    1.7    1.6    2.3    4.4

Just a cursory glance reveals that they shot the ball at the same FG% and shot around the same number of FTs at nearly an identical FT%.  Also of note is that they share similar asts per 40 numbers with Noah clocking in at 2.2 and Camby with 2.0.  They accumulate fouls at exactly the same rate of 4.4 per pace adjusted 40 and Noah nabs slightly more steals while Camby is better at blocking shots.

Now let's move on to the more advanced statistics to see if they tell a similar or disparate story.  Via basketball-reference they read like this:

Season   Player     Age       G      MP      PER      TS%      eFG%      ORB%      DRB%      TRB%      AST%      STL%      BLK%      TOV%      Usg%      ORtg      DRtg      OWS      DWS      WS      LS      WSAA

1996-97  Camby   22       63      1897      17.8      .523      .483      7.9      16.7      12.2      9.6      1.8      5.5      13.0      24.3      103      105      2.9      6.4      9      16      -3.5

2007-08  Noah     22        74      1534      15.5      .539      .482      12.4      18.4      15.3      8.6      2.3      3.3      16.4      15.6      109      104      3.9      6.9      11      6       2.5

Again, we see that these players are fairly similar in skill set and productivity.  Camby has a PER that is over 2 points greater than Noah's but that is mostly a product of his much higher usage rate (24.3 for Camby vs. 15.6 for Noah).  I think it's safe to assume that part of Camby's larger usage rate compared to Noah is that he is better able to create his own shot than Joakim is, however looking at the other statistics it's hard to see how these two players aren't considered equals as rookies.  Noah is the better rebounder (ORB%, DRB%, and TRB% are all greater than Camby's).  Camby has a higher AST% (strange to me given that I had always viewed Joakim as a great passer for a big man and Camby not as much).  Noah has a better STL% (2.3 vs. 1.8).  Whereas, Camby is a better shot-blocker (5.5% vs. 3.3%).  Noah has a higher turnover rate, even given his much lower usage rate, which is a little troubling.  However, turnovers tend to decrease with increased experience, so that problem is atleast somewhat mitigated.  Also of interest to me, was that using Dean Oliver's Stats (ORtg and DRtg) Camby and Noah gave up 105 and 104 points per 100 possessions, respectively, and produced 103 and 109 points per 100 possessions, again respectively.  So per 100 possessions, Noah produced 5 more points than he surrendered whereas Camby gave up 2 more points per 100 possessions than he produced.  (Note: I haven't read BoP yet and if I've completely botched that explanation or the way I've described it is misleading, please let me know).

Conclusions

I know there's been some question as to whether Noah is the long term answer at the 5 and about the merits of Drew Gooden at the 4/5 this year, so I hope this will open up a more in-depth dialogue about Noah's future potential with people much smarter than I am about these sorts of things(and that includes so many of you posters here at BaB).  Mainly, though, this is a love-letter to Joakim Noah, a player I feel is wildly underrated and who I hope and believe can be a more enthusiastic Marcus Camby.  That combined with Scotter's projections of Tyrus Thomas as potentially the second coming of Shawn Kemp, has me feeling pretty happy about this frontcourt's future. Plus, it's the offseason, it's the time for wild-optimism about the future.

(Note: sorry about the formatting of the stats above, if anyone knows a better way to format those, please let me know.)