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Bulls Tue Mar 08 2011
Six Degrees of NBA Separation
The Bulls have only been around for 44 years, but it's still impressive that their first star, Jerry Sloan, and their latest, Derrick Rose, can be connected through only five degrees of NBA separation.
Sloan, an all-star with the 1966-67 expansion Bulls, played the year before in Baltimore with:
- Ben Warley, who played in Denver with
- Spencer Haywood, who played in Washington with
- Rick Mahorn, who played in Detroit with
- Lindsey Hunter, who played in Chicago during Rose's first two seasons.
Sloan's Bulls teammate Bob Boozer is only four degrees from Rose's teammate Carlos Boozer (no relation).
All this data comes from a clever little web tool created by Ben Blatt and Arjun Modi of the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective. Punch in any two players in NBA history (since 1949) and see how many jumps it takes to connect them.