Don’t look now but the Chicago Bulls are on a winning streak, and Joakim Noah finally broke his silence to the media. Noah has been visibly frustrated since the Bulls traded Luol Deng to the Cleveland Cavaliers for the contract of Andrew Bynum.
The Bulls of course immediately waived Bynum, freeing up cap space. In the Bulls’ 103-97 Saturday win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Noah scored 19 points and had 14 rebounds and four assists.
The loss of Deng has been hard for Noah, who told USA Today that even without Luol Deng, the Bulls were going to fight, and had no plans of tanking.
“The trade definitely hurt,” Noah said. “I know a lot of people say this is a business and all that, but this game is more than a business to me. I put everything I’ve got into this. I feel like Lu was the same way, so it was hard for me to digest. But that’s just my perspective. Everybody has a different job. I’m not mad at anybody. I’m not mad at the organization or anything like that. It’s just that my brother isn’t here, so I just need time to digest that.”
Noah reiterated that the Bulls had no intentions of going out and losing games on purpose.
“There’s no tanking. There’s none of that,” he said. “We’re going to go out and give it 150%. When (our jerseys) say ‘Chicago Bulls,’ I want people to be proud of that. Whether we have four guys out, no matter who’s hurt, we’re going to give 150% win or lose. I know people in this city are proud of that.”
