Chicago Bulls: Tandem of Jerry Sloan and Bob Love has always gone unappreciated
Bob Love
Bob Love came into the NBA a year after Sloan as the fourth round pick for the Cincinnati Royals. Love would only spend two seasons with the Royals as mainly a reserve player. He averaged 6.7 and 6.4 points a game while in Cincinnati.
In the 1968 expansion draft Love would be chosen by the Milwaukee Bucks, who quickly flipped the 6-foot-8 power forward to the Bulls after only 14 games.
Love would finish out the 1969 season with the team. After that season, under Dick Motta’s offense, Love shot up to 21 points and 8.7 rebounds a game for the 1969-70 season. If there had been a most improved player category in that eras NBA, I believe Love would have been a front runner.
The next three seasons would be his best as he averaged over 25 points a game twice, and 23.1 for the other season. Love was an all star those years, made the All-NBA Second Team in both 1971 and 1972, adding NBA All-Defensive Second team honors for both seasons as well.
Love’s next season saw a bit of a dip in points, as he averaged only 221, but was yet another year of NBA All-Defensive second team honors. Love would average 22 points the next year as that turned out to be the last season in which he would be above that 20-point marker.
1975-76 saw a low of 19.1 points a game for the long time Bull, and the least amount of points Love had in a full season of action for the city. The Bulls legend however would only spend 14 games with the club the next season.
Love had spent parts of eight seasons with the Chicago Bulls, including six relatively full and healthy campaigns. In those campaigns he led the team in scoring all but one time, which was when Chet Walker just barely outscored him during the 1969-70 season.
Unfortunately, Love’s last season would also be that same 1976-77 campaign. Love would play an effective 13 games for the New York Nets which could have been a good fit, except they were terrible and had a bad team culture having just transferred from the ABA.
Love’s last chance was given to him by the Seattle Supersonics, who only gave him 14.1 minutes a game; twenty less than Chicago had given him that same year. He would average 4.1 points a game and would retire after 32 games in the west coast.
Love was a fantastic player who had a good run with the Bulls and while It ended faster than most would have hoped, there were still many memories that him and his running mate made.