Joakim Noah Is Not a Top 30 Player in the NBA, ESPN NBA Rank Dropped the Ball

ESPN ranked Joakim Noah as a top-30 player in the NBA, and I have a hard time believing that the placement is warranted.

While I understand the value that Noah brings to the Chicago Bulls team and the specific role he plays for the club, it's hard to rationalize him as a premier talent in the league when the sample size seems incredibly limited to this point.

Since being drafted ninth overall in 2007 out of Florida, Noah has yet to play in a full complement of regular season contests.

Although Noah missed just a combined 10 games over his first two seasons in Chicago, the developing center has been sidelined for an astounding 52 games over the next two years, and he played in just 48 games in 2010-11 due to a gimpy ankle.

Despite Noah getting significantly more attention last season than he did throughout 2009-10, his third campaign was actually better than his fourth.

Despite the slight difference, it's worth noting because players ranked inside the top-30 should be continually progressing rather than showing any sort of regression.

Here are his numbers from both season for comparison.

2009-10: 64 games, 30 MPG, 50.4 FG%, 74.4 FT%, 11.0 rpg, 2.1 apg, 1.8 TO, 0.5 stl, 1.6 blk, 10.7 ppg, 3.1 personal fouls per game

2010-11: 48 games, 33 MPG, 52.5 FG%, 73.9 FT%, 10.4 rpg, 2.2 apg, 1.9 TO, 1.0 stl, 1.5 blk, 11.7 ppg, 3.3 personal fouls per game

As you can see, it wasn't all bad with Noah last season. He improved on his scoring output, doubled up in the steals department and found a way to become more efficient from the field.

However, he took a slight step back from the free-throw line, saw a decrease in his rebounding rate and didn't appear as active swatting shots around the rim as we had seen from him previously.

While some of that decrease in production had to do with the arrival of Carlos Boozer, to be a top-30 player in the NBA is a special title, and it should be reserved for the truly premier players.

There are certainly other gripes about players inside the top 30 who may not belong, but to put Noah ahead of Joe Johnson (32), Andrew Bogut (33), Andre Iguodala (34), Eric Gordon (39), Kevin Martin (42) and even Josh Smith (43) is not something that I'm prepared to do until I see more from him, as I've seen from every other name mentioned.

Frankly, Noah deserves to be behind both Tyreke Evans (47) and Gerald Wallace (48) as well.

It's become clear recently that some players on good teams tend to get overvalued in terms of their actual skill set, and I think that's exactly what's happened in the case of Noah.

While Noah's contributions are quite impressive to date given the fact that many were questioning his ability to play in the league coming out of college, he simply hasn't shown enough to paint him as a top-30 player in this league.

On ESPN's NBA Rank Project, Noah came in at No. 29, in between Tony Parker and Andrew Bynum.