Remember when we thought Joakim Noah had lucked into the best situation of any of the recent Gators? Now, not so much.

From the Chicago Sun-Times' Jay Mariotti:

So there was Ben Wallace, $60 million waste, laughing on the bench Tuesday night in Orlando. The Bulls were on their way to another hapless, character-less loss, and Big Bum was having such a good time that you wanted to stuff him in a Goofy suit and point him to Disney World.

He wasn't the only quitter and slacker in a 102-88 defeat, the latest stinker in a pathetic season of quitting and slacking. The laughter apparently led Joakim Noah, coming off a teammates-approved suspension for screaming maniacally at assistant coach Ron Adams, to confront Wallace in an episode that required Luol Deng to separate them. All of which only underscores the thievery taking place...

At least Noah, who returned to produce 12 points and a career-high 11 rebounds, cares about winning. Seems Noah was as irked as I was about the apathy of some veterans -- the same mopes who had gone to Boylan and urged him to extend the rookie's one-game suspension to two games for the Adams incident. Shame on Boylan and general manager John Paxson for allowing those veterans any latitude to make disciplinary decisions when some are guilty of far worse sins than Noah.

Noah reacted to those comments thusly, also from the Sun-Times:

‘‘You know what makes me mad, that somebody actually said and told you guys that there was a situation,'' Noah told WSCR's Mike North from the Bulls' team hotel in Miami, where they play tonight. ‘‘That's what makes me mad. That's the only reason why I'm doing this right now. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing it.

‘‘For people to say we've had a clash ... this is the kind of stuff that divides a team. You guys write these stories and hype things up. It's crazy.''

Note the absence of an actual denial, just anger that we found out about it. I stand by my statement that Noah is far too self-involved to be the great teammate he's billed as, and would need a lot of evidence to sway that opinion.