Cleaning out the Inbox: Basketball Passings

      This edition of passings pays tribute to recent passings from the basketball universe. 

Goodbye to Dikembe Mutombo at the age of  58.

An eight-time All-Star and four-time Defensive Player of the Year known for his rebounding, shot-blocking, and infectious happiness around the game, Mutombo led the NBA in rebounding twice and in blocked shots three times after the Denver Nuggets drafted him fourth overall in the 1991 draft from Georgetown.

Mutombo would play eighteen seasons in the league for six teams with his number fifty-five retired by the Nuggets and Atlanta Hawks at the end of his career.

Mutombo is well-remembered for his finger-wiggling "No-No" after blocking a shot which earned him a part in a Geico commercial a few years back.

Goodbye to Jerrod Mustaf at the age of 55.

Mustaf was the first highly-rated recruit to choose Maryland since the death of Len Bias and would play two seasons with the Terrapins, averaging sixteen points a game before being picked seventeenth overall by the New York Knicks in the 1990 draft.

Mustaf played one season for the Knicks and three for the Phoenix Suns, averaging four points a game for his career before playing several seasons in Europe.

Goodbye to Wesley Cox at the age of 69.

Cox was the leading scorer for the Louisville Cardinals in the 1974-75 season, who made the Final Four for the first time in program history.

Louisville lost by one point to UCLA, the eventual national champions.

Cox was the first-round selection of the Golden State Warriors in 1977 and would play two seasons with Golden State, averaging 4.6 points per game.

Goodbye to Bob Love at the age of 81.

"Butterbean" was drafted by the then-Cincinnati Royals in the fourth round of the 1965 NBA draft but didn't become a star until moving to the Chicago Bulls in 1968.

Love would average twenty-one points or more for six years in a row for the Bulls, make three All-Star teams, and was named to the All-Defensive team on three occasions before his number ten was the second number retired in the history of the Bulls franchise.