Joakim Noah
Joakim Noah, a native New Yorker, signed with the Knicks in free agency in July of 2016. Noah was yet another player who would end up being a much bigger headache off the court than he was an asset on the court.
First of all, he, unfortunately, dealt with a couple of pretty serious injuries in his time with the Knicks. And, of course, injuries are part of the game but good grief.
On April 27, 2017, Noah had surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder and while it was during the offseason, he would have to spend the summer rehabbing it rather than working on his game. And this after Noah was inactive late in the previous season with a knee injury which he underwent surgery for on February 27, 2017.
Once again, the Knicks had signed a player with a history of injury problems that started before coming to New York. And once again, rolling the dice and hoping they would be healthy was a bad bet. But it’s not hard to put together why those were the only bets the Knicks had available to them.
By this point, it seems obvious that all of the losing and dysfunction meant the list of players who would be willing to play for the Knicks at all was limited. The fact that Noah as a New Yorker most certainly factored into his signing there and was a draw that could overshadow the shambles that the organization was in. But having so few options also meant that injuries weren’t the only things that players willing to play in New York brought with them.
You’ve probably noticed that along with injuries, the Knicks seemed to have a high level of players who were volatile, disruptive, irresponsible and/or just generally unprofessional at one point or another. Along with his injury issues, Noah would also fit himself nicely into this category.
Between the knee surgery and the shoulder surgery, on March 25, 2017, the league announced that Noah would be serving a 20-game suspension for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy. The suspension would end up lasting the first 12 games of the following season.
And sure, after all was said and done, the League believed that Noah had made an honest mistake, but I’ve never had much sympathy for athletes who make this particular mistake. Your job is to be available to play and part of that job is making sure you don’t take anything into your body that could prevent that.
But if you include an accidental drug violation as something that can be overlooked along with Noah’s injuries, Noah was also part of another Knicks’ player/coach feud this time featuring Jeff Hornacek. Things started to go downhill between the two, at least publically, when Noah didn’t get the minutes he was expecting to during the Knicks January 23, 2018, loss to the Warriors.
Between finishing out his suspension from the previous season and the fact that Hornacek had settled into a rotation during his absence, Noah had seen minutes in only seven games to that point in the season including the Golden State game. Noah was said to be visibly upset when he was ordered to return to the bench by Hornacek and wasn’t interested in talking about it postgame.
Immediately after that game, Noah was away from the team for very suspicious ‘personal reasons’ which Hornacek initially said would be:
"[via BR] …for these two games and we’ll see. We’re not going to comment on that stuff. Personal reasons, he won’t be with us for a couple of games."
And no wonder Hornacek was so tight-lipped. These quotes are from January 25, 2018, a day after he and Noah got into an argument in which they had to be pulled away from each other. An argument which included a shoving match that Hornacek reportedly initiated.
Two games turned into four before on February 2, 2018, the NBA announced that the Knicks and Noah had come to an agreement that he would stay away from the team while the front office explored trade options. A trade that was going to be hard to accomplish since Noah had missed so many games to injury and was less than two full years into his four-year, $72 million contract.
When Jeff Hornacek was fired on April 12, 2018, there were rumblings that just maybe this would be an opportunity for Noah to rejoin the team. But alas, it was not to be. On October 13, 2018, the Knicks released Noah using the NBA’s stretch provision.
When reporting the news, Marc Berman called Noah’s contract:
"…the worst signing in franchise history."
The worst though? I don’t know if I can call it that since I’ve so recently learned the details of signings such as Antonio McDyess, Eddy Curry, Allan Houston, and Carmelo Anthony. But the fact that there are so many to choose from says everything about the Knicks history since their last finals appearance in 1999.