The Chicago Bulls are playing extremely good basketball right now as they are coming off an impressive win against the San Antonio Spurs on Monday to bring their record to 10-5. While the Bulls are playing well one thing remains clear and that is that Joakim Noah is still looking to find how he fits in with this team. Noah was taken out of the starting lineup this season and is reportedly frustrated by the amount of playing time he is getting, according to Nick Friedell of ESPN.
Noah is coming off his best game of the season where he made a major impact as he scored eight points, dished out seven assists and grabbed 11 rebounds but overall this season his numbers are staggering. Noah is averaging just 20.6 minutes per game and while he is rebounding well (8.1 RPG) he has scored just 3.1 points per game which is 12th on the team.
Noah was never much of a scorer as his career high for a season is 12.6 but he is a two-time All-Star that used to be the heartbeat of this team but now he isn't getting the minutes he feels he deserves. Based on advanced metrics Noah has been great on the defensive end this season but has been bad on offense. New coach Fred Hoiberg is known as an offensive coach so he has instead been playing Nikola Mirotic and Taj Gibson more minutes in the frontcourt and frankly they have been playing better all-around than Noah this season.
The numbers seem to indicate that Noah is the fourth best of the big men Hoiberg plays and that he is getting the proper amount of minutes but Noah is the Bulls' energy guy and has given them so much over the years that it is hard to fathom the fact that he is playing so little. When talking to the media on Tuesday Noah was reportedly visibly frustrated by his playing time and believes he needs more run.
Noah is and always has been a team guy so when it was announced that he was moving to the bench nobody batted an eye over it because they figured he would adapt. Noah is not the type of player that is going to complain or make a scene over this but he knows what type of player he is and what he brings to the table so despite the fact that he hasn't played well so far this season he believes his track record shows he will be helpful to the team with more minutes and he is probably right.
