I have mixed feelings about Pete Maravich
Like.. the guy was a legend. He averaged like 44 PPG in college. He was a prolific scorer in the NBA and was flashy with both scoring and passing. He was considered one of the greatest ball handlers ever. He died young. All these make up for a man who’s more myth than fact.
But you dig into his career, and here’s what you get:
-He only played 10 seasons, only 7 of which was sorta healthy seasons where he played over 60 games
-He was a prolific shot chucker; he averaged more FGAs per game than Lebron or Kobe or West or even Rick Barry and roughly the same amount as Iverson. He was basically the Iverson of the 1970s.
-It’s difficult to judge his 3P% although apparently he was a sniper back then, but his regular FG% of 44% sure aint nothing special
-Turnovers per game weren’t tracked until later in his career, but he averaged almost as many TOV as AST.. that’s not good
-He reached the playoffs 4 times; 3 of which he was sharing scoring duties with Lou Hudson on the Atlanta Hawks and 1 time when he was a bench player with the Larry Bird Celtics. He never reached the playoffs as the main star for the New Orleans Jazz.
-He looks pretty lackluster in advanced analytics.. TS% of 50%, and WS/48 of only 0.09? that’s not great for an all time player like him
-He couldn’t really play defense to save his life
I don’t know.. Pete Maravich was on the NBA 50 and NBA 75 teams but he doesn’t seem like even a top 100 player to me. More like top 150. I don’t want to seem like a hater but I have a spreadsheet where I calculate every NBA star’s ranking in awards, stats, totals, analytics etc combined… and Pistol Pete is somewhere in the top 150 for me. That’s all I gotta say, once upon a time I too was enamored by his flashy scoring and passing, but the dude is overrated. He’s literally the Iverson of the 1970s but unlike Iverson couldn’t even reach the Finals OR conference finals as the main guy.
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