Joakim Noah On The Chicago Bulls Rivalry Against Miami Heat In LeBron James' Era: "It Was Bad Blood."

LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh's Miami Heat Big 3 was unarguably one of the most dominant teams assembled in the history of the league. But since the three superstars joined forces, it also became one of the most hated teams in the league's history.

During the Heatles era, the Heat were the favorites to reach the NBA Finals each year from the Eastern Conference. But the Chicago Bulls were a great rival for the Heat at the time. The Bulls were led by none other than prime Derrick Rose and, with the duo of Joakim Noah and Luol Deng, made them a formidable team in the East.

But despite all their efforts, they could never get past the Heat in the postseason. Evidently, this developed some bad blood between the players of the two teams.

Joakim Noah Admits He Hated The Miami Heat

Noah and the Bulls faced off against the Heat twice during the Heatles era and ended up losing both series in five games. Noah recently talked about the rivalry between the two teams in the latest episode of JJ Redick's podcast.

(Starts at 3:40)

"It was bad. We were competing against these guys, but it was, like, bad blood. They weren't f**king with us. We weren't f**king with them. It was personal. I remember him being in the gym and I didn't even know where to put myself and I remember him on the sidelines being like, 'Yo, good luck. Keep it up.' And I don't even know if he knows this, but it just like meant a lot to me."

In the same interview, Noah also revealed that he previously tried to recruit both LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to his team as well. It could have become an amazing superteam, but it never happened.

So there's a chance that Noah's hate towards James and Wade developed from that incident. But at the end of the day, Noah admitted that he has let go of that part of his life, and as he mentioned in the interview, it was due to Wade's small gesture at the gym.