FRA - Noah follows noble pursuit

NEW YORK (NBA) - When Joakim Noah was learning his game on the streets of New York, he had a nickname that hints at his rich heritage.

Meet "The Nobleman".

"My father was a tennis player, my grandfather a soccer player," he said. "I'm noble, baby. I'm The Nobleman."

The family of Noah have gone a long way to shaping the man that the Chicago Bulls drafted on Thursday night.

Just in case a deep line of sporting genes wasn't enough, remember that this is a man who claimed to have his grandfather Zacharie practicing voodoo for him to make sure he got where he was going.

The tale which tells how he got to be the ninth overall pick in Thursday's NBA draft can only come from a background as diverse as Noah's.

He was born in New York City, just a few city blocks from Madison Square Garden and the site of the draft, but his roots spread to France and Cameroon.

And wherever those roots are there has been one consistent theme. Winning.

His father, French tennis star Yannick Noah, could teach him a thing or two about it.

So could his grandfather, former Cameroon international soccer player Zacharie Noah.

Then there is his grandmother, Marie-Claire, who is a former captain of the French women's basketball team.

Judging by Noah's college career, he learned every lesson they taught him to lead Florida to back-to-back NCAA titles.

"I learned a lot from my father," Joakim said. "I feel like my father, he's my best friend. I feel like the most important thing I learned from him was his work ethic. He was somebody who worked really, really hard."

Noah got to see the example set by his father, and understand what an athlete has to sacrifice to make it at the top.

"He always used to tell me, 'People tell me that I have a God-given serve' but what people don't realize is that growing up he didn't have a childhood," Noah added. "He would wake up two hours before school and serve for two hours everyday.

"God given? Yeah. He had abilities. God gave him great ability but at the same time he was working harder than anybody else, he was serving 500 times a day, there's a reason he had a better serve than anybody else."

Although born in New York, Noah spent his early years in France, where a career in basketball seemed an unlikely career choice.

"If I stayed in France all my life, I don't know if I'd be sitting here today," he said. "That's not because of how the French are, but because in my situation, I just got pampered over there because of who my father is.

"In New York, my father wasn't around so people didn't really know much about it. In France, regardless of whether I win 10 NBA titles, I'm still the son of Yannick Noah. He's the man out there."

Noah honed his game by playing on the streets of New York, straying from his Hell's Kitchen neighborhood to test himself in Harlem and hone his skills.

That street basketball style is evident in Noah's game, which is more about emotion than finesse.

He freely admits there is much he needs to do to improve as a player.

"I think I have to improve everything," he said. "When you start thinking, 'Okay, I'm good enough,' that's when you don't improve. But even if something is your strength, you can still improve on your strength."

What Noah will never be missing is spirit. He simply refuses to lose.

"I hate to lose," he said. It is not something he has had to experience too much in recent years.

Together with Al Horford and Corey Brewer - both of whom were also lottery picks on Thursday - Noah made the Gators consistent winners.

"We sacrificed a lot to win," Noah said. "We were not the most talented team. We worked really hard but it was not just about work ethic. It was about realizing what it takes to win basketball games."

Winning shouldn't be a problem in Chicago, where Noah joins a team that made the playoffs last season and already has a solid core of exciting young players.

That's more than any draft lottery pick has a right to expect, and it is enough for Noah, a boyhood New York Knicks fan, to put to one side the rivalry between the two teams.

"I'm playing for an organization that I really wanted to play for," he said after learning of his destination. "I look at the top 10 and I feel like Chicago definitely is one of the only teams that really has a chance to be a contender to win a championship and to be a part of that right away."

The Bulls impressed for much of last season before meeting their match in the playoffs, losing Detroit having won the regular-season series with the Pistons.

With Noah on their side, maybe they can go all the way. After all, Noah and his family bring some pretty powerful forces along with them.

En route to Florida's first NCAA title in 2006, Noah claimed his grandfather was practicing voodoo to help Florida to victory in the Final Four.

So as Noah gets ready to face the biggest challenge in his basketball career yet, has Zacharie been sacrificing any more chickens?

"I don't know," Noah said. "I hope so. He'd better have done."

Ian Parker
FIBA