Bob Love

I was a junior in high school when the Bulls acquired forward Bob Love and a whole bunch of things, including forklift driver and graduate student, when they traded Love to the Nets eight years later. He was part of a team that meant more to me than Michael Jordan ever would. Love teamed up with Chet Walker; Jerry Sloan; Norm Van Lier; and Tom Boerwinkle (plus Clifford Ray and Bob Weiss) for a run of successful, blue-collar ball the likes of which Chicago had never seen before and never since. Sorry, Tom Thibodeau is no Dick Motta. Every spring, my world teetered on some sort of brink, because of school or work or women or some combination of all three. Watching the Bulls grind out a win with their half-court offense and in-your-face defense provided a safe harbor. If they never won it all, they still kept me from losing it all. Love died on Monday, the last of the starting five. No more Jim Durham behind the mic, no more Butterbean of Chet the Jet. Just echoes, ever fainter.