Because we attended school (occasionally) at the University of Illinois, most of our old friends are fans of the Chicago Bulls, and it's difficult to overstate how excited they were when they initially signed Ben Wallace. It felt vindicating, the reward for waiting for the first post-Jordan star. That didn't work out quite the way they had hoped. And now it's over.

Now Wallace is part of the "save LeBron's sanity" experiment in Cleveland, and the Bulls have Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden to show for it. Alas.

This is how it works in the NBA, we suppose. Shaq, Jason Kidd and Ben Wallace is exhausted and exhausting in Miami, New Jersey and Chicago; they're flipped to become saviors in Phoenix, Dallas and Cleveland. If you're not sure how you feel about an aging superstar ... just wait.

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