Joakim. Ja'mon.

So rodbarajas.blogspot.com was walking up Eighth Avenue in New York City at around 5:30 yesterday when we happened across a crowd at the Westin hotel. It's the height of the tourist season, so we thought nothing of it until Yi Jianlan, all 6'11" of him, walked right in front of us onto a bus, and then we realized what was happening: the likely lottery picks were leaving some event and heading down to the Garden. We thought we had missed everyone else until a security guard yelled, "There's one more!" and who should step out but Joakim Simon Noah himself wearing, well, exactly what he was wearing last night (except the Bulls hat, obviously). After calling every basketball fan we knew and giggling, we went off to a softball game, only later realizing that we had just missed Oden and Durant (we'll live) and that Noah had been drafted by the Bulls, a big-league version of his incredible college team. Thanks for playing, LeBron. It was fun!

Joakim Noah's Barajas number is 1. Noah once had a mushrooms-induced hallucination that he led the Florida Gators to a third straight NCAA title with a team of himself at center, Taurean Green at the 1, Barajas at shooting guard, Billy Donovan at the three and Steffi Graf at power forward. Lucky the Leprechaun, of cereal fame, was the coach and joined the Orlando Magic following the game. Really.