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Rozner: Biggest loser in Rose injury saga is fans

Bobby Orr is hardly remembered for his Blackhawks years.

But I remember those 26 games played over three seasons - because he was Bobby Fricken Orr.

The man who might have gone down as the best of all time - had he been able to play another 10 years - played only nine full seasons and then just 36 games over the next four years before he retired at the age of 30.

When he left the game having revolutionized a position, he had averaged more points per game than any player in NHL history - he's still fourth - and at 31 he was the youngest living player ever inducted into the Hall of Fame.

By then, he had endured a dozen knee surgeries, each one more destructive than the last. He could barely walk and skating was even more difficult.

And he was still the Hawks' best player, netting 27 points in those 26 precious games.

When I met Orr at the 2013 Stanley Cup Final in Boston - thanks to an introduction from the great Bob Verdi - we talked about those last few years and what it was like trying to play on one leg.

He talked about participating in the 1976 Canada Cup - just before he joined the Hawks - when he could not practice and could not warm up. He just played. Orr was named tournament MVP and tied for the scoring lead among all players with 9 points in seven games.

Team Canada teammate Darryl Sittler was quoted as saying, "Bobby Orr was better on one leg than anybody else was on two."

That night in Boston we talked about how life might have been different for athletes like Orr, Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus and Andre Dawson had there been arthroscopic surgery back then, and we talked about what might be facing Derrick Rose, who had just missed an entire season with an ACL injury in his left knee.

Orr wasn't all that concerned about the ligament, but he did wonder what would happen once cartilage became an issue, and by November 2013 Rose had a meniscus tear in his other knee and was out for the season again.

Now, 15 months later, Rose has again torn the meniscus in his right knee and his immediate future is in doubt, not to mention his long-term future and his career.

This is what Orr was talking about that night. Once you have cartilage problems, Orr said, the knee will never be the same and from that point forward it's a matter of trying to manage the pain. He hoped Rose would not lose years off his career because of it, as was the case with Orr.

But that's where we are now with Rose. You have to wonder if the injuries will ever subside and you wonder just how effective he will be for as many years as he can play.

Rose is only 26 and he will play again in the NBA, hopefully for a long time. This isn't to suggest his career is over, but it's also clear that Rose will never again be the best player in the NBA, the one that dominated four years ago in becoming the youngest MVP in league history as he led the Bulls to the No. 1 seed.

He will never again explode to the rim the way we saw him do it then, a time that seems so long ago now.

It's hard not to think about that today, much more so than what this means for the Bulls' playoff hopes or how this impacts their decisions down the stretch.

It's sad that one of the greatest athletes this city has ever seen is going to have to rehab again instead of gearing up for the postseason, that he is probably wondering if he can keep going through this.

Derrick Rose is suffering again, and to think of the questions he must be asking himself now would make just about anyone feel empathy, regardless of his thick bank account.

Selfishly, we are deprived of greatness, talent that doesn't come around all that often, the kind that is easily acknowledged and impossible for mere mortals to understand.

And I think of the great Bobby Orr, skating on one leg at the old Chicago Stadium, wearing the most beautiful uniform in sports.

It's enough to make you blue.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Hear Barry Rozner on WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.

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