The former NBA star revisits the city he publicly criticized in 2010, and what he found there surprised even him
Joakim Noah has spent 16 years hearing about it. A press conference, a playoff loss and a few careless words about a city turned into one of the most enduring pieces of NBA trash talk lore. Now, the former Chicago Bulls center has gone back to face what he said and what he found in Cleveland was not what he expected.
The moment in question came in 2010, right after a Game 1 playoff loss to LeBron James and the Cavaliers. A 23-year-old Noah, raw from the defeat and unfiltered in the way only a young competitor can be, called Cleveland depressing and suggested no one vacationed there. The clip traveled far and fast, and it never really stopped.
A show built for exactly this kind of reckoning
Noah’s post NBA travel series, Nomad, airs on NBAT2 on YouTube and follows him as he explores basketball culture around the world. Episode 5, set in Cleveland, Ohio, and releasing in April 2026, is built around personal reflection as much as it is about the sport.
When the idea of filming in Cleveland was first raised, Noah was hesitant. He knew what the internet expected a comedian returning to the scene of the crime, playing up the irony for views. But the episode took a different shape entirely. He arrived not with a prepared script of apologies but with something more unsteady and honest: real discomfort. The experience proved deeply personal in ways he had not anticipated.
What he discovered when he actually showed up
Noah did something he had never done before. He left the arena and walked the neighborhoods. He met residents, sat with strangers and set basketball aside. What came back to him was warmth.
The locals were open and welcoming in ways that caught him off guard. He had half-expected frost. Instead, he found people who extended kindness without conditions or grudges. One woman in particular, whom Noah refers to as Cookie Mom, left a lasting impression. She showed him genuine affection and hospitality, with no interest in relitigating the past. For Noah, that encounter captured everything the trip became about.
More than just a redemption tour
It would be easy to frame the Cleveland episode as a clean apology arc bad comment, public regret, tearful reconciliation. But the episode resists that tidy format. Noah does not lean on performance. He sits with the weight of having said something that stuck to a whole city for a decade and a half, and he tries to understand it rather than simply walk it back.
He has also been clear about what drove that original comment. It came immediately after a playoff loss, from a young man still in the grip of competitive emotion. That context does not erase what was said, but it adds dimension to it. The rant was not a considered opinion. It was pain talking.
What the episode says about who Noah is now
The broader mission behind Nomad seems to be exactly what this Cleveland episode embodies. Noah has spoken about wanting the show to bring people together and shine a light on places and communities that deserve more attention. In that sense, returning to Cleveland was not just about settling old scores. It was about doing the work the show was designed to do.
At 40, Noah carries the episode with a quieter kind of honesty than the press conference version of himself ever could have managed. He is not the young playoff warrior anymore, and Cleveland, it turns out, is not the place he dismissed in 2010, either. Both have changed. The episode seems to understand that, and so does he.