The Chicago Bulls franchise started in 1966 and although their 33-48 record is the best ever by a first-year franchise, they struggled their first few years like most expansion teams do.  Then a 6′8″ silky smooth wing with “Love” joined the team.  His name was Bob Love, and he was acquired in a trade from Milwaukee in the 1968-’69 season.  His first full season with the Bulls came the next year in the 1969-’70 season.  That season Love led the Bulls in scoring with 21.0 points per game, helping the Bulls to a franchise high in wins (39) and a franchise record of 114.9 points per game, a mark that will likely never be broken.  Love continued to get better, and as he improved so did the Bulls.  With a hard-nosed and defensive-minded guard named Jerry Sloan to lean on, Love and the Bulls went on to five-straight winning seasons from 1970 to 1975.  Their best record came in the 1971-’72 season, where they went 57-25 for the third best record in the league.  Love averaged a career high 25.8 points along with 6.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists that year.  In the 1974-’75 season the Bulls won their first Division Title, the only Division Title the Bulls have ever won outside the Michael Jordan era.

Love was with the Bulls from 1968-1977, playing 592 career games for them.  In his Bulls career he averaged 21.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 1.6 assists.  Love was the first true star for the Bulls franchise, and he held nearly every franchise scoring record before that guy named Jordan came along.  What most people don’t know about Love was that he had a debilitating stuttering problem, so much so that he struggled to find work after his playing days (he even worked as a busboy).  He eventually took speech therapy classes that helped him overcome his problem, and then went on to become the Bulls Director of Community Relations in 1993 and a motivational speaker for troubled youths.

Scott Pippen played 12 years for the Bulls and he won six NBA Championships in that time. He often likes to point out that Michael Jordan never won a title without him and that is true. Pippen doesn’t belong in the same breath as Jordan as a player but he is absolutely right about what he said. Pippen played in 856 games (743 starts) for the Bulls and he averaged 35.4 minutes, 17.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.1 steals and 0.9 blocked shots per game. I’m pretty sure that Pippen would have scored a lot more points if he played for a different team early in his career but he was a perfect fit being the #2 guy behind Michael Jordan.