Bob Pettit: St Louis Hawks great who won first NBA MVP dies aged 93
· Yahoo Sports
Bob Pettit, the dominant scorer and rebounder who earned the inaugural NBA Most Valuable Player award in 1956 while playing for the St Louis Hawks, has died at the age of 93.
His alma mater, LSU, announced on Thursday that he had passed away a day earlier. The university did not provide a cause of death.
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Before embarking on his professional career, Pettit achieved All-American status at LSU. He then spent 11 seasons in the NBA - all with the Hawks franchise - earning an All-Star selection in every single year of his career. In 1958, he guided the team to victory over the formidable Boston Celtics to secure the Hawks’ only championship.
Pettit captured a second league MVP award in 1959 and was named All-Star Game MVP four times, a benchmark matched in league history only by Los Angeles Lakers icon Kobe Bryant.
Pettit led St Louis Hawks to the NBA championship in 1958 (Sporting News Archives)He established his presence alongside legendary contemporaries such as Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, and Elgin Baylor. However, because his career preceded the era of widespread national television broadcasts, and because he played in a smaller market, Pettit was denied a larger audience.
Standing 6-foot-9 and weighing 205 pounds, Pettit was a physical presence at power forward before the position became a standard part of basketball’s vocabulary. Remarkable for his durability, he rarely missed a game, also logged time at center, and broke tradition by becoming one of the first big men who did not play solely with his back to the basket.
His professional career began in 1955, when he was named Rookie of the Year during the Hawks' final campaign in Milwaukee prior to their relocation to St. Louis.
The following season, he claimed the MVP trophy while leading the league in scoring at 25.7 points per game. He earned another scoring title in 1959, averaging 29.2 points.
Pettit retired after the 1964-65 season with career averages of 26.4 points and 16.2 rebounds per game. At the time of his retirement, he held the NBA record for total points with 20,880 and ranked second all-time in rebounds with 12,849.
Bob Pettit (right) won the first NBA MVP award (Getty)He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970.
"Lean, graceful, and always well-conditioned, Bob Pettit's physical build made him one of the first big men to play facing the basket," reads Pettit’s biographical profile at the Hall of Fame. "But Pettit's resolve set him apart from his peers; he simply would not be outworked."
Robert Lee Pettit Jr. was born on December 12, 1932, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where his father worked in law enforcement and served as East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff. Pettit was a late bloomer in the sport, failing to make the Baton Rouge High School varsity team until his junior year.
By his senior season, he led his high school to a state championship and received more than a dozen college scholarship offers. He opted to stay home and starred at LSU starting in his sophomore year, an era when freshmen were ineligible for varsity play.
He led the Southeastern Conference in scoring in all three of his varsity seasons, with averages of 25.5 points as a sophomore, 24.9 as a junior, and 31.4 as a senior.
Pettit is one of only three LSU players - alongside Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal - to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Bronze statues of Pettit and O’Neal stand outside LSU’s home arena, the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. His No. 50 jersey is retired by LSU, and his No. 9 is retired by the Atlanta Hawks.
"We are grateful for his contributions to our franchise and to basketball history," the Hawks said in a statement. "His retired No. 9 jersey continues to hang proudly at State Farm Arena as a lasting reminder of the impact he made on our organization. We extend our deepest condolences to Bob’s family, friends and loved ones during this difficult time. We also join those across the basketball world in celebrating a remarkable life and legacy that will never be forgotten."
Pettit is one of three LSU players - another being Shaquille O'Neal - to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame (Getty)Throughout much of his career, Pettit contended with a Boston Celtics dynasty that stands among the most dominant runs in American professional sports history.
He came just two victories short of becoming a three-time NBA champion. Pettit’s Hawks reached the finals four times, all against Boston, twice losing in seven games.
Their initial championship meeting in 1957 went to double overtime of Game 7 before Boston prevailed. The Hawks won the rematch the following year, briefly interrupting a stretch in which Boston captured nine titles in 10 seasons. St. Louis later lost two more NBA Finals matchups to the Celtics, falling in seven games in 1960 and five games in 1961.
Following his retirement from professional basketball, Pettit returned to Baton Rouge to work in banking and financial consulting. In recent years, he remained a regular spectator at LSU and New Orleans Pelicans games.