With the Joakim Noah era in New York over, front office brass is not only thrilled the oft-injured center is gone but giving second thoughts to signing him, Marc Berman of the New York Post writes. Knicks president Steve Mills discussed the divorce from Noah and his take on the original four-year, $72MM given to the former All-Star in the summer of 2016.
“Obviously I’m disappointed it worked out the way it worked out,” Mills said. “I don’t know that, had it been just my decision, I don’t know that I would have signed him.”
Mills was the Knicks’ general manager and worked underneath then-president Phil Jackson when Noah was brought onboard. The 33-year-old battled injuries in his first season with New York, appearing in 46 games. Noah played just seven more games last season before being suspended following an altercation with former New York coach Jeff Hornacek.
In a recent interview, Noah admitted that he partied too much while a member of the Knicks and that he was “too lit” for New York. The Knicks used the stretch provision on the remainder of his contract and waived the veteran before the start of the season.
Noah joined the Grizzlies — who he called the perfect fit at this stage in his career — and through eight games, is averaging 4.9 PPG and 3.4 RPG for Memphis off the bench.
“There was a reason why we thought that this was the best thing for the culture and the environment of our team,” Mills said. “When the speculation was why don’t we handle Joakim one way and we decided to handle it a different way, there was a reason why we handled it the way we decided to handle it.”
Mills would do better to reflect on his own short tenure running personnel decisions after Jackson left. THJ and Baker contracts were at least as head scratching. Also, come up with a better explanation on Noah, because keeping him on the books this year wouldn’t affect team culture.
Noah IS on the books for this year (year 3). His fourth and final year is the one that was stretched. A season counts in full once a new year starts (I believe in July 1st).
Correct, as to salary. It’s for that very reason they should have held him on the roster until the summer (W&S then is the same as when they did it), to see if it was worth W&S, W & not S or trade as dead money.
The Noah signing wasn’t the bad part, it was the contract that was given to him. Way over paid.
Now, the THJ signing was bad because they bid against themselves and the worst of them all, though not as impactful, was the Baker signing – he got one digit too many in that deal. He may hustle and be a fan favorite, but he’s a beer league player at best.
The contract (years and $) is always the problem. There are no bad contracts that are 1 year at minimum salary. At least none worth discussing.
Mills needs to reflect on that THJ contract a little bit more I believe. The Noah contract was bad for sure, but nobody knew he would just completely stop trying after leaving the Bulls.
So was Jackson the boss and not the owner? That does not sound right even if Jackson had the green light…
You already have Phil’s job, taken it easy w the stabs. He didnt want to do it anyway but 10M a yea is 10M a year.
Noah looks shredded tho. One wonders if he worked hard stay in shape AFTER the writing was on the wall..
link to instagram.com
Speaking of partying… Btw Noah, was that Bill Clinton?
Why step onto that train?
Also on the train, “The worst call in the year of bad calls 2016, thanks Phil”.