Former NBA center Joakim Noah is eating at a Filipino restaurant in Chicago's East Village. He's talking about helping the city's youth at a boxing club. He's chopping it up with restauranteur Christopher Zucchero, taking a boat trip down the Chicago River, and reflecting with old friend and teammate Derrick Rose. Then, a click later, he's in Rabat, Morocco.
The tale of the NBA player who retires and enters the hazily defined "media space" is an old one—and, some might say in the age of provocation-a-minute player podcasts, a tired one. Enter Noah, who is seeking to use his global background to try something completely different—a travel show.
"The thing that's so beautiful about it is being able to ask the questions that I'm interested in," Noah told recently. "When you're playing basketball, it's like, 'Why was the defense so bad tonight?' I'm tired. It's bulls–t. I'm tired of that."
On Nov. 11, Noah premiered , an original YouTube series jointly created by the NBA and video-game behemoth Take-Two Interactive under the NBAT2 Media banner. The series' conceit is simple: Noah—all 6-foot-11 of him—traveling the world, interacting with various cultures, and exploring those cultures' relationships to basketball.
Less than two minutes into the series, Noah's multicultural background—still unique when the Bulls drafted him ninth out of Florida in 2007—is spelled out for any viewer who may have forgotten. His father, Yannick Noah, is a Tennis Hall of Famer and a diamond-selling pop star in France. His mother, Cécilia Rodhe, was Miss Sweden 1978. His grandfather, Zacharie Noah, was born in French Cameroon and won soccer's Coupe de France.
This melting pot of cultures—seasoned by Noah's NBA career, which took him to the United States's three largest cities—lends authority to his voyages.
"It's my biggest gift, coming from a lot of different places, and having the privilege to go to these places as a kid," Noah said. "Going to Christmas in Sweden, and then the next year going to Christmas in Cameroon—Santa Claus is Black in Cameroon, you know?"
In both episodes, Noah drifts from place to place in a rhythm familiar to viewers of late chef and travel icon Anthony Bourdain, who the center called the "Holy Grail." As was the case on Bourdain's programs, a variety of local characters combine to add color: Rose, Zucchero (whose restaurant Mr. Beef inspired ), the Casablanca rapper ElGrandeToto, and legions of passersby.
Forming the highlight of the series thus far, Noah and Rose have a heart-to-heart in the first episode while taking in the Chicago skyline. Rose, born and raised in Englewood on the city's South Side, praises "the good, the bad and the ugly—the fight and the challenge of being from here."
To Noah, the series's challenge to stereotypes and ignorance seems to strike at something fundamental about hoops.
"When you're in the NBA, and you're playing at the highest level, your teammates come from all over the world, and you have to be able to relate to them to be able to win," Noah said. "I had teammates from Serbia, I had teammates from South Sudan, I had teammates from the South Side of Chicago. You have to bring in all these different cultures to win a basketball game."
"[Basketball and , a Take-Two property] bridge the gap between players and fans, and it gives us a point of view that allows us to work with someone like Joakim not as a brilliant, passionate basketball player, but as someone who is curious and adventurous and uses basketball to understand the world and understand himself," NBAT2 Media CEO Andrew Perlmutter told . "We think that's really special."
The series consists of just two episodes so far, but Noah and Perlmutter envision an expansive future. Either way, Noah will gain something greater than the $144.8 million he made on the court.
"Every trip is an adventure, and real wealth at the end of the day is just being able to have your own experiences," Noah said. "What the show really allows you to do is to dig deeper, have deeper conversations, get out of your comfort zone and and learn. To be able to have your own stories in all these different places, I think is it's the biggest wealth you can have."