Every few days, it seems, a social media post appears on my feed asking me to decide who is the greatest NBA player of all time. Michael Jordan, Lebron James? You decide. Keeping with the Southern Voice’s policy of objective journalism, I would never take a side in such a debate; I would never tell you that Michael Jordan is the greatest NBA player of all time and anyone who says otherwise was either born after the turn of the century or hasn’t ever watched Jordan play the game. I would never have that debate, you know, to maintain my objectivity.
My objectivity, however, is not required when the same subject arises for college basketball. There is no debate about the greatest college basketball player of all time. Tonight, at 6:30 pm (CST), LSU will unveil its memorial to college basketball’s most prolific player, the floppy sock-wearing, mop-topped, skinny kid known as The Pistol. A statue of Peter “Pete” Press Maravich will stand next to fellow Hall of Fame Tigers Shaquille O’Neal and Bob Pettit. Maravich, an All-American at LSU 1968 -1970, is college basketball’s all-time leading scorer — in total points (3,667) and points per game (44.5) by a West Baton Rouge Parish country mile. The next closest is Portland State’s Freeman Williams, over 400 points shy in total points at 3249, or Notre Dame’s Austin Carr at 34.6 points a game, almost ten points per game short. A quick peek at any of a large number of available YouTube videos of Maravich’s college games will quickly reveal the level of his game being head and shoulders above the norm of the day.
Stephen “Steph” Curry, considered the best pure shooter of all time, put up astounding numbers compared to almost anyone other than Maravich. Curry scored 2,635 points in three seasons with the Davidson Wildcats, but the three-point line netted him 1,242 of those points on 414 made three-pointers. For comparison, that’s 1,242 points, and 414 three-point shots more than Maravich scored behind the three-point line because the three-point line wasn’t adopted by the NCAA until 1986. In fact, Maravich played without the three-point line and had no shot-clock, yet still scored over 1,000 more points.
Former LSU coach Dale Brown analyzed Maravich’s LSU game tapes. He determined that with the number of baskets made from 19’9” and beyond, Maravich would have averaged an additional 14 points per game or a mind-boggling 57 points per game average, had there been a three-point shot in Pete’s college career. That’s a touchdown more than twice as much as Curry’s 25 ppg average. Maravich and Curry both played three seasons in the NCAA, though Curry played in 21 more games. Maravich out-rebounded Curry by two rebounds per game and had 1.5 more assists.
Maravich led the NCAA in scoring all three seasons he played on the varsity team (1968 – 1970). NCAA rules at the time prohibited him from playing varsity as a freshman, but he averaged 44 points per game on the freshman team. He was a three-time Consensus first-team All-American (1968 – 1970), three-time SEC Player of the Year (1968 – 1970), two-time NCAA Player of the Year, and his number 23 jersey is retired and hanging from the rafters in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at LSU.
Maravich had followed his father, the great Press Maravich, to LSU after having played High School Basketball in South Carolina and North Carolina as his father was coaching at Clemson and N.C. State respectively. At Needham Broughton High School in Raleigh, NC, Pete earned Parade All-American Honors and was said to be the most promising player in the nation.
In 1970, after completing his eligibility in college, Maravich was drafted third overall by the Atlanta Hawks and famously said, “I don’t want to play for ten years in the NBA and die of a heart attack at age 40″. The Hawks were locked in a negotiating battle against the Carolina Cougars from the rival ABA. The Cougars had drafted Maravich as well and the battle over his services led to Pete signing a record $2 million dollar contract with Atlanta, becoming the highest-paid athlete in history at that time.
The Hawks had played two seasons in Atlanta after the franchise moved from St. Louis. The team had some exceptional players in Lou Hudson and Walt Bellamy, but the team was drawing crowds well under NBA average. Maravich’s style of play was exciting, but was not an ideal fit with the more conservative style the team had in place. He was selected to the NBA All-Rookie team in 1970-71. The Hawks qualified for the playoffs that season but exited quickly after a first-round loss to the Knicks. Maravich did accomplish one primary goal for the Hawks; he put more people in the seats.
In his third Atlanta season, the Pistol averaged 26.1 points per game and was selected to the NBA All-Star team, but the Hawks again lost in the first round of the playoffs. Maravich played one more season in Atlanta, in which he had stellar stats, but the team struggled. He was traded to the expansion New Orleans Jazz.
Maravich’s 10-year NBA career was successful but increasingly stunted by injury and declining health. He was a five-time NBA All-Star and the 1977 NBA scoring champion. His jersey was retired by the Atlanta Hawks and the Utah (and New Orleans) Jazz. After an injury forced him into retirement in 1980, Maravich backed away from the spotlight and stayed out of the public eye. He reemerged a few years later as an evangelical Christian, having devoted his life to Christ, proclaiming that he wanted to be remembered for his service to Jesus more than as a basketball player.
On January 5, 1988, Pistol Pete had a fatal heart attack while playing pickup basketball in Pasadena, California. Maravich was at First Church of the Nazarene to tape a segment of James Dobson’s evangelical radio show. His last words were, “I feel great,” just moments before he collapsed. The man who said he didn’t want to play ten seasons in the NBA and die of a heart attack at age forty, tragically, did exactly that.
LSU has been slow to memorialize the legend, but as his statue takes its place on the north side of the arena bearing his name, college basketball is reminded that nobody ever outgunned the Pistol.
–
Southern Trivia-
Several of the Harlem Globetrotters whose numbers have been retired are/were Southerners. Meadowlark Lemon, Goose Tatum, Curly Neal, Marques Haynes, “Sweet” Lou Dunbar, and Geese Ausbie were all Southern-born.
The owner of the Hawks at the time Maravich was a team member, Tom Cousins, also owned the Atlanta Flames NHL club and the Atlanta Chiefs soccer club. The Chiefs were the first team to bring a championship to Atlanta, winning the Championship of the North American Soccer League in 1968,
