When LeBron James moved to Miami in 2010 to form a super team with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, his decision shook the league. Although he had a successful four-year run, people didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t win his first two titles without pretty much ending all competition in the league. One of LBJ’s biggest competitors at the time, Joakim Noah, recently claimed on Get Got Pod that the whole country hated him for it.
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The main reason why LeBron’s decision was not appreciated by fans was because it meant that other teams would have little to no chance against the onslaught of Miami. When asked why Noah couldn’t win a title with the Bulls in the early 2010s, he presented the same reason.
He jokingly said, “There was a guy by the name of LeBron James. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him. Yeah, he was a bad mother***er, man.” Despite playing against the tandem of LBJ, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Ray Allen (who joined in the summer of 2012), Noah believed that his Bulls team had the best chance of beating the Heat.
Noah said, “Everybody was like, ‘Man, this f***kin’ goofy a** sh*t. Why you’re going to play with another top…So the whole country was like, ‘F**k Miami.’ We were the team that really had a shot to beat them.”
From 2010-11 to 2013-14, the Miami Heat made four consecutive Finals appearances and lost the first and last Finals series to the Mavs and Spurs respectively.
In that period, Noah’s Bulls lost to the Heat in the 2010-11 Conference Finals and the 2012-13 Conference Semifinals. Outside of the Heat, LeBron beat the Bulls in the 2009-10 playoffs (1st round) and the 2014-15 Conference Semifinals. Noah also believes that if Derrick Rose hadn’t torn his ACL in the 2012 playoffs’ first round, the Bulls could’ve beaten the Heat.
Joakim Noah and LeBron James are yet to mend their relationship
An intense rivalry during the early to mid-2010s led to some heated battles between the two. Now, nearly a decade since the peak of their rivalry, Noah and LeBron are yet to shake hands. During an appearance on Udonis Haslem’s The OGs podcast, the former NBA star was asked about the current status of his relationship with LBJ.
He said, “Nope, we haven’t [worked things out].”
Noah once famously said during an interview, “I’ve never heard anybody say, ‘I’m going to Cleveland on vacation.’ What’s so good about Cleveland?”
Despite that, he clarified that he never had any issues with Cleveland as it was his anger toward LeBron that was misdirected. Noah stated that losing to the same player year after year and seeing him dancing on the floor, not taking the competition seriously, made him furious.
