Joakim Noah said he has work to do on his surgically-repaired left knee but is happy with his overall progress and has experienced no setbacks or pain during training camp.
“None at all,” Noah said following Wednesday’s practice at the Advocate Center in Chicago.
The Bulls have limited Noah throughout preseason, though he did play both ends of the back-to-back set that concluded on Monday in Columbus, Ohio.
“In the beginning I was a little bit more uncomfortable,” Noah said. “I was a little limited. I still have to get my strength back in my leg. Just trying to manage practicing, playing. But overall I’m happy with where it’s at.”
Asked if he’s confident he could handle extended minutes once the regular season began, Noah answered briefly.
“Yes,” he said.
On the front end, that isn’t the plan since the Bulls added Pau Gasol via free agency and still have sixth man of the year runner-up Taj Gibson. This frontcourt depth will allow the Bulls to be more judicious with minutes for all three players, all of whom coach Tom Thibodeau has said will play a significant role.
Thibodeau got asked if restrictions on Noah and Derrick Rose would be lifted early in the regular season.
“We’ve got some guys where it’s a situation where they need to work, they need to play. But they also need to do what they can handle,” Thibodeau said. “It all plays into it.
“Noah’s a work in progress. I think he’s starting to feel better. You can see his timing is coming around. For him, that was his first back-to-back. That was good. He has to work at it.”
The NBA’s reigning defensive player of the year has said he will wear a brace all season to protect the knee, which the Bulls originally said would only need eight to 10 weeks of rehabilitation.
Noah didn’t play five-on-five until training camp and admitted on Media Day that the knee is something he will have to focus on off the court often. But he also differentiated between maintenance and pain.
“I have to do a lot of strengthening and activation and a lot of flexibility,” Noah said. “Not that I wasn’t doing that before. It’s just being a little bit more conscious of your body.”
