With the 5th pick the Boston Celtics select Joakim Noah

I know hindsight is easy, but whenever I see the Bulls I just love Noahs game, even KG showed alot of class saying he woulda been fine with Noah getting the start on the all star team. Imagine if we selected Noah and kept Big Al and Tony Allen? With Rondo and Pierce and possibly Perk, maybe we get more wing depth with a trade of Perk? Man I would love to see Rondo TA Pierce Big Al and Noah with say Perk and an Avery Bradley or Delonte if he didn't go nuts and some wing off the bench with a 3 point game to spread floor. We would be such a great rebounding team, a motivated Rondo from a few years ago with TA and Noah would be killer defensively and Big Al would clean up the boards, he and Noah would destroy teams inside and Noah has ability to defensively handle the stretch 4's..... would be so much fun to see those two as our twin towers. Big Al could post, when teams dare double could feed Noah for easy dunks/finishes.

cow - i was advocating the noah pick from day 1

I remember that without a doubt I wanted to see us get Noah.

However, with Noah there would have most likely been no KG and no Ray. There is no way to be sure but probably no title either.

We might be younger and stronger now, but then again Big Al hasn't really panned out to be big-time and is arguably one of the worst defenders at his position today.

It went the way it went, and I'm good with that.

Besides, if we never got KG we wouldn't smile every time we saw a box of Honey Nut Cheerios at the grocery store.

Big Al kicked Bosh's ass very thoroughly last game when Jazz beat the Heat. Hes not the perfect complete player, theres no perfect BIG out there right now, his strengths, inside scoring and rebounding, hes pretty good at. I think hes never had enough talent to play with to really be on a contending team, hes a very good key piece that has value.

Noahs game has faults as does Big Als, put them together, they could compliment each other fine, make up for each others weaknesses.

We were all happy the way it went once we got KG, he was so ferocious that year, that team played with a chip on its shoulder the whole year, that was all on KG's leadership, at one time we were 27-3....sick.

I still root for Big Al, its a shame a player afraid to mix it up inside like Bosh has somehow made the all star team 6 times and Big Al never has. I remember Sam was high on Noah too, if we could have taken Noah that team would have gone through growing pains, but by 11 or 12 and now we could have also been serious contenders too.

IMO Noah could have gone either way coming out of college. A talented energy guy who makes things happen and can play at an All-Star level without any discernible offensive talent.
OR
A college energy guy who becomes a decent bench guy but is over matched by more skilled big men who are starters. ie a very good college player who looks very ordinary in the pros.

We've seen more of the second type of player than the first.. Noah is the rare energy guy who can play on a starting unit and excel.

Hey, Celtic Fan, nice to see you posting. I hope you continue to register your opinions. We can always use informed posters—especially friends over the years.

Sam