Bulls Didn't 'Overpay' For Joakim Noah

The Chicago Bulls signed a deal their starting C Joakim Noah to extend his contract that would've made him a restricted free agent after the 2010-11 season. The deal is for five years and reportedly worth $60m, with incentives that could lift the total to $65m. And, yeah, it's a good deal.

Though I was a big supporter of packaging Noah with Luol Deng to grab Carmelo Anthony from Denver, I agree with Kelly Dwyer at Yahoo News!, who wrote, "And count me in as one of the people that consider this one of the more reasonable things that has happened during a pretty nutty offseason", adding:

They need him to work as an anchor of the team's defense, which after spending all sorts of money on free agent pickups and hirings during the offseason, will continue to be the thing that the team will have to hang its hat on. Chicago still can't shoot, and they're going to have to go defense-first if they want to make it past the first round. Noah still has quite a bit of work to do when it comes to trying to find that delicate balance between all-out help defense, and sticking with his man. He pulls it off, though, more often than not.

And that's before Noah even opens his mouth, because as anyone who's been remotely close to the action down low during Bulls games can tell you, the guy won't stop talking. In a good way. Pointing plays out, positioning teammates, letting everyone know where he is - and then actually executing, when it comes time to be "where he is."

This is why he fits. Because as important as he was in Vinny Del Negro's pell-mell schemes over the last two seasons, he'll be significantly more important working under former Boston assistant Tom Thibodeau, known for his game tape-heavy ways and exacting defensive work behind the scenes. He'll be so vital to the success of this team in ways that can't be explained in rebounds, blocks, or even raw plus/minus.

Partially because of the fact that he is a true center, which is also the hardest position to fill adequately in this league. Which is why, yes, position plays a big part in Noah earning in upwards of $13 million a year if incentives are met.

Centers are hard to find. [...] Picking up a 7-footer who would be averaging a double-double in just under 31 minutes per game, by his third year? This is something you hang onto. Especially when you consider the defensive merits of Noah's game.

I don't even know why I still read Dime, because the analysis is brutally pedestrian to the point where I wonder if the staff judges players solely by highlight reels and how their virtual creations perform in video games. Aron Phillips' article for the website saying the Bulls "overpaid" Noah is ignorant of how markets function. Are markets always rational? No because the actors are flawed humans, but to judge the rationality of a market action, one must factor in as many market forces as possible to minimize the margin of error in the judgment and Phillips is judging a market function in a virtual vacuum.

Noah came to the table wanting $70-75m over five years, granted according to a relatively reckless source, while the Bulls were offering $57m. Seeing as the final deal is a $60-65m deal, I think the oft-scrutinized source mentioned can be reasonably validated on this claim.

It's well-documented that Noah has no interest in playing somewhere that isn't a hot spot for his energetic, highly-extraverted lifestyle, so we could get hypothetical and isolate him only seriously entertaining offers from the Knicks, Nets and Clippers---maybe the Wizards, Hawks, and Rockets, depending on how they handle their budgets. Excluding the Heat, Celtics, and Lakers, outright seems reasonable with their personnel and money situations.

As a restricted free agent, Noah could put this price on the open market and get that offer in a bidding war between the center-less Knicks or to become the Nets PF, which would force the Bulls to match the end-price of this pissing contest or be center-less themselves.

There simply won't be centers available in 2011 and losing Noah plus trading for a center becomes a regressive effort to at best remaining on the road in Round 1 of the playoffs.

Looking at the big men available in 2011, I see:

• Al Horford (restricted) -The Hawks can be expected to overpay Horford, if need be, matching offers using salary cap exemptions.
• Marc Gasol (restricted) - The Grizzlies are expected to match any offer for the same reasons and the scarcity of big men.
• Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler - Yeah, Chicago's not going down that road again, no matter what the price.
• Greg Oden (restricted) - See Eddy Curry.
• Yi Jianlian (restricted) - No.
• Samuel Dalembert and Zydrunas Ilgauskas - Seeing as they'll be sixth men beginning a decline a year from now almost for damned sure, no.
• Zach Randolph - Here's a way to fuck up your depth chart. He'll cost more than Noah and will have the Bulls paying two PFs.... This isn't even serious enough to keep going.
• Yao Ming - Dare I say it, see somewhere between Oden and Ilgauskas?
• Nene - Not quite Dalembert and Ilgauskas, but he's aware of this downside and will be on the prowl for a long-term deal that'll tie a team down; regressive for the Bulls.
• Kwame Brown - LOL!

How does one not reasonably see the Knicks and Nets, maybe the Clippers, getting near $75m in their offers to outbid each other? So, the choice for the Bulls seems like:

• Pay the man who wants to stay $60m;
• Pay him $70m+ or rebuild; or
• Become---I don't know---the Houston Rockets?

Noah did say that the coming collective bargaining negotiations between the NBA Players Association and management played a role, but the managements' victories will likely come more in minimum salaries for veterans, luxury tax of exceeding the cap and cutting the methodology behind the mid-level exemption. If anything the vets receive will effect second contracts like Noah's, his size scarcity will still inflate his contract to at least the amount for which the Bulls signed him. Don't let it fool you: the Bulls received a discount because of Noah's passionate preference to not be in a boring city or a part of an organization destined on the hellish side of NBA purgatory.

Phillips alludes to Kendrick Perkins, but Noah's a rung above Perkins on the athleticism, rebounding and passing angles. Looking at the numbers, of NBA players under 29 and at least 6'10", Noah's production is scarce. His rebounding, scoring, and defensive production is somewhere between Perkins and Andrew Bogut.

Yes, Bogut only made $10m last season, but his deal was signed with a dash of hope and a lot of unanswered questions. More importantly, Bogut's contract doesn't prove Noah is overpaid as much as it proves Bogut is way underpaid.

Pointing to Noah being along with Deng and Carlos Boozer making more than Derrick Rose is borderline basketball-retarded, especially because Phillips acknowledges that Rose is still under his rookie contract. It's not like the Bulls see those three as more valuable than Rose. Phillips knows this, but consciously induces this inference.

Phillips also assumes that "this move signifies that the Bulls feel that a core of Rose, Deng, Boozer and Noah can compete for a championship with the likes of Boston, Miami and Orlando", which is blatantly false. Deng's contract is the bad one here and the Bulls will be shopping this contract around the league all season and hand it to any takers between the 2011 playoffs and FA season as they did to dump Kirk Hinrich's albatross contract.

All of that said, I'll baffled to understand how Noah's contract is "eerily similar" to the six-year $42m ($50 with incentives) that Cleveland gave to Anderson Varejao. I can't even see how the comparison ought to be respectable enough to illicit a thorough response.

Comparing Noah's numbers to every other NBA players signed to multi-year, seven-figure per year deals is ignorant of the scarcity that, as Dwyer noted:

NBA centers are usually paid in U.S. dollars, while the rest of the league is paid in British Pounds. A darn good center will usually make 1.6 times the number of what a darn good small forward makes, because that's just a function of the scarcity (and, as is often the case in this league, the optimism in too many NBA GMs, thinking the best out of that 7-foot plodder that had three great weeks last April).

Actually analyzing the conditions of the NBA and its marketplace, the Bulls' deal with Noah makes complete sense with a pretty low margin of error.

Worst case scenario, Noah's peaked, but his contract won't lose his trade value. Tyson Chandler gets dealt all the time to willing takers, right?