NBA Power Rankings: All 30 Starting Centers

4.  Joakim Noah — Chicago Bulls

An All-NBA 1^st Team selection is usually an indicator that someone belongs near the top of their position. Noah earned every bit of his recognition when it came to defending the rim and being a top-notch teammate.

Being creative and flourished in the paint, however, doesn’t make Noah a top five center on offense. He’s just not the type of personality that you can see grasping tons of post moves with his back to the basket. Passing out of pick-and-rolls and delivering backdoor passes would be his specialty, and you can only picture how much more we would appreciate it if Chicago had scorers on their roster last season.

In Offensive Real Plus-Minus, there were only 10 centers throughout the league that finished with a positive figure. Noah placed third on the list, behind only Al Jefferson and Nikola Pekovic. It’s quite odd, since you can’t look at Noah and expect to trust him to score on his own late in a game – or even in the first three quarters. Eight years out of Florida, and he still has a funky mid-range jumper that rarely falls, and he’ll get frustrated when he has no room to score near the basket.

Taking a look at who claimed the All-NBA 1^st Team honors, you find Noah, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, and James Harden.  All five are members of top-seeded playoff teams, with none belonging to teams below a No. 4 seed last year.

That tells you that voters typically favor guys on winning teams, or at least higher-seeded organizations.  What would Al Jefferson have to do in order to be considered for that honor?  He was the sole reason Charlotte squeezed that group into the playoffs, and you could argue that his contributions and effort were far greater than Noah’s last season.  Jefferson’s teammates — not singling … *Michael* … anyone …. *Kidd* … out … *Gilchrist* — couldn’t score on par with him, and laid it all on the big man down the stretch of the schedule.  Yet, Chicago finishes with five wins over Charlotte.

I’m just convinced that All-NBA voting should look at the big picture of things and find that Noah wouldn’t suffice enough interior scoring to belong with the likes of LeBron, Durant, Paul, and Harden.  Sure, that theoretical group wouldn’t need  Noah to score, but I just look for the best overall package that you can assemble from both ends on the court.

Noah is the best (or second best) defender out of the group and the hungriest for competition, but the overall product in what you should strive for comes in one of the next three.