Joakim Noah, the energetic rookie of the Chicago Bulls will most likely join the French National Team for the Eurobasket 2009 qualifying games in September. This is reported by the French newspaper L’Equipe today.
The paper reports in its online edition that Joakim has tried to accelerate the process of getting a French passport. Noah had to decid between different National Teams (his mother is Swedish, his father is French, his grand-father is from Cameroon and Joakim is born and raised in New York) and everything looks like he has taken a decision right now.
According to Yannick, his father, Joakim will meet with the officials of the French federation in the beginning of May to discuss his future with the French National Team. As the Chicago Bulls are already eliminated of the Play-Off race, Noah will be in holidays shortly and ready to join the team of the new coach Michel Gomez during the summer to prepare the qualification round in September.
For “Les Bleus” who will play without their other NBA players (Parker, Diaw, Pietrus) for different reasons, the energy of the young Bull will be heavily needed in the paint. And he brings back the glamour bonus to a Eva-Longoria-hubby-less team. So the Belgian, Ukrainian and Turkish Centers beware if you don’t want to get a nice poster in your bedroom like Emeka got.
