(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-06-28 15:34

NEW YORK, June 27 - Joakim Noah is so excited about fulfilling his dream to play in the NBA, he does not want to miss a moment of the run-up to Thursday's draft.

"I'm really living a dream," said Noah, the 22-year-old son of 1983 French Open tennis champion Yannick.

"My life is a movie now. It's just hard to go to sleep. You don't want to miss anything, so why sleep?"

Noah, who won back-to-back U.S. collegiate hoops titles with the University of Florida, said draft day would fulfil a lifetime dream.

"Since I was six-years-old this is what I dreamed about -- literally, about this day and it's tomorrow. It's awesome!" he added.

Noah, sporting a bushy ponytail and wispy moustache and goatee, said his grandfather, a former professional footballer, would be on hand for his special day.

"My grandfather came in from West Africa, Cameroon," a grinning Noah told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday. "He got his suit made. He's gonna look funky."

Noah's father, enjoying his second career as a touring pop singer and recording artist, will not be able to attend the draft at Madison Square Garden.

"He's very busy right now," Noah said. "He's on tour. He has a sold-out concert in front of 20,000 people."

The 6 foot 11 (211 centimetres) Noah, whose mother was the 1978 Miss Sweden, was born in New York, lived in France for 10 years and then returned to New York where he refined his basketball skills.

Noah, named Most Outstanding Player of the 2006 NCAA Tournament Final Four, in which he blocked a record six shots against UCLA in the title game, said he had learned valuable lessons from his father.

"I feel like what I learned from my father was work ethic. He once told me, 'People used to tell me I had a God-given serve. He has such athletic ability.'

"But when he was a child, he used to get up in the morning and practice his serve for two hours a day. He was practicing his serve more than anybody else, hitting 500 a day."

"It wasn't like God just gave it to him," added Noah. "That teaches me that I got to bust my butt."