Eighteen years ago today, I went into my mother’s house for dinner. I had just frozen my ass off for fifteen races at Freehold Raceway and was getting ready to spend the night betting on Harness races at the Meadowlands. As I was going through my email, I heard my mom yell from the kitchen, “You better turn on the TV, that basketball guy is dead!”
“That basketball player is dead? What basketball player?” I said.
I went over to the television and turned it on. We always watched the ABC affiliate in New York and the nightly sportscaster was Warner Wolf. Within seconds, “We just confirmed that former NBA great Pete Maravich collapsed during a casual game in Los Angeles, he was rushed to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead. Maravich was 40 years old. The details are not clear at this time, but we will.” have a full report on Live at Five.”
I sat up in a daze.
For those of you who are too young to remember, Pete Maravich WAS Showtime 20 years before Showtime even existed. Arguably the best ball handler and arguably the best “pure” shooter in NBA history, Maravich was hands down the most creative offensive basketball player of all time! No-look behind-the-back passes were commonplace and Maravich could lob a one-bounce pass across the pitch to a wingman on a fast break and put it in a teacup. Thirty-five (yes, 35) foot jumpers with two guys on top of him were usually nothing more than netting.
The quintessential gym rat as a child, the 6’5″, 200lb Maravich burst onto the scene with his mop of hair and baggy gray sweatsocks in 1966 when he enrolled at LSU to play for his father, a former coach. professional and longtime collegiate, Press Maravich The NCAA at the time did not allow freshmen to play college baseball, so Maravich began his career averaging 43.6 ppg for Tiger’s freshman team.
His next three years at LSU are the stuff of legend and his scoring records will never be broken. In his three years as a Bayou Bengal, Maravich scored 3,667 points (1,138 points in 1968, 1,148 points in 1969, and 1,381 points in 1970) while averaging 43.8, 44.2, and 44.5 points per game. In his college career, “Pistol Pete” averaged an incredible 44.2 ppg in 83 contests and led the NCAA in scoring three times. He also set an NCAA record by scoring 50+ points 28 times and was named a three-time All-American.
Maravich holds nearly every major NCAA scoring record, including most career points, career-high scoring average, most field goal attempts and shots, and most 50 point games. The three-pointer was not introduced until the 86-87 season or Maravich would have easily averaged 50 points per game – FOR HIS CAREER!
Maravich was selected third overall (behind Bob Lanier and Rudy Tomjanovich) in the 1970 draft by the Atlanta Hawks. He quickly distanced himself from his veteran teammates with his game and $1.9 million rookie contract, by far the largest of his time. Maravich still averaged 23.2 points per game and was named NBA Rookie of the Year. After four tenuous years with the Hawks, he was traded to the expansion New Orleans Jazz for Dean “The Dream” Memminger and draft picks.
Maravich played five years for New Orleans/Utah before being released in 1980 and ending his career as a Celtics bench player. Maravich was an All-NBA First Team in 1976 and 1977, leading the league in scoring in 1977 with an average of 31.1 points per game. I watched him drop a career-high 68 points on the Knicks while he was protected by one of the top five defensive guards of all time in Walt “Clyde” Frazier. The “Pistol” was a five-time All Star, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1987 and named among the NBA’s 50 All-Time Greatest in 1996.
It turned out that Maravich was born with a congenital heart defect and had only one coronary artery. Normally, people have three, which makes his career even more remarkable.
Like most other unique talents, Maravich was haunted his entire life for not winning. LSU went 49-35 during his career, 20-8 as a senior and finished third in the NIT. The Hawks had just one winning season during his tenure and NO/Utah was an expansion franchise. In his final season with the Celtics, Maravich averaged 6.0 points per game on a team that lost to the Lakers in the NBA Finals.
Maravich, who had suffered knee problems during the second half of his career, was invited to Celtics camp the following year and made the team, but withdrew after scoring 24 points in just 16 minutes of the final exhibition game. from Boston.
Maravich and Dick Butkus were my only two sports idols growing up, so their untimely deaths made me especially uneasy. Besides the socks and hair (who can forget those Vitalis Dry Control commercials), my personal memories of the gun were a shootout with Notre Dame’s Austin Carr, the 68-point game against the Knicks, and the Horse halftime contests. and One-on-One. that were shown in the breaks of the matches of the week.
The Pistol had numerous difficulties off the court after withdrawing to find peace with the church. He had various ministries and led Christian youth camps up until the time of his death.
Eighteen years old, wow! Seems like yesterday. I didn’t eat or go to the races that night. Rest in peace Pete Maravich.