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Next Maravich?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by writestuff1, Mar 24, 2011.

  1. MrHavercamp

    MrHavercamp Member

    I'm betting that I'm older than you, Stoney. And I hate to tell you, but the legend that built up around Pete began in the 1960s for many good reasons, none of which you care to acknowledge. This post-1988 conspiracy theory about his legacy is all in your mind. I'll believe my own eyes, as well as the eyes of all the basketball greats that saw him play. You know, the ones that were quoted above. You hate Maravich. I get that. But don't try to pass that off as you're right and everybody else is wrong.
     
  2. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    In that case, I apologize. I thought you were voicing your own opinion. I agree with everything else you've posted here.

    Maravich was incredibly fun to watch, and nowadays makes for some wonderful retro highlight reels on youtube, and he's a very interesting character that made a great subject for a couple damn good books. But this false idea that he's one of the best OVERALL players ever is utterly laughable. He's not even Top 100.
     
  3. YGBFKM

    YGBFKM Guest

    No one ever said he was a great overall player. But how many great overall players are there in any sport? A handful?
     
  4. Small Town Guy

    Small Town Guy Well-Known Member

    If we're talking about West vs. Maravich, it's worth noting West was probably the biggest loser in basketball history. I mean, first he loses an NCAA title game. Loser. Yeah he was best player in that game. Still, loser.

    Then he goes 1-8 in NBA Finals. And for most of them he played with another Hall of Famer, one of the 20 best players ever, Elgin Baylor. When did Maravich have a teammate that good in his prime? And he had Wilt for the last losses in the finals. So West's a loser, right?

    No. That'd be a dumb argument. Just as it's dumb to just denigrate Maravich with "he never won anything." Okay, yeah, he didn't win a title. Were those Hawks and Jazz teams title contenders? If he'd only taken fewer shots they would have won 60 games?

    In college, LSU was a basketball wasteland before he got there. Bob Pettit was not walking through that door. LSU's record in the years before Pete started playing as a sophomore:
    1966: 6-20, 2-14 in SEC
    1967: 3-23, 1-17

    Then with Pete:
    1968: 14–12, 8–10
    1969: 13-13, 7-11
    1970: 22-10, 13-5

    I don't know, going from 3 wins to 22 in three years, I think Maravich had something to do with it. And not going to an NCAA tournament. Today that'd be something to hold against a guy. Back then most guys didn't go to the NCAA tournament.

    As for teams getting better when he left...

    The 1974 Hawks won 35 games with Pete. The 1975 Hawks won 31 without him. They won 29 games without him.

    The Jazz were terrible in Pete's last year there and won 26 games. But check out their roster. Yikes. The next year, with Pete only playing half the year, they won 24. So who are these teams that improved when Maravich left? Are we saying the Celtics won the title in 1981 because Maravich retired? Yes, that team got better after he left - the only one. Although the additions of McHale and Parish probably had more to do with it than the subtraction of Maravich.

    Maravich was no Jerry West. That's correct. There were better all-around players certainly. But he wasn't just hype, he wasn't just ridiculous numbers. He was actually a great player who was also stuck on horrific teams. To say he's not one of the Top 100 players in NBA history is some type of contrarian hyperbole that belongs on Slate or in a Skip Bayless column. Yeah, yeah, he should have made his teammates better. Well, it's easier making Elgin Baylor better than Rich Kelley.

    The reason there's not going to be another Maravich is because he was more than just a player. Pistol Pete's about the myth, the father, the records, his teams' struggles, the drinking, the injuries, his mother's suicide, the ball-handling, his race, the passing, dribbling the ball during movies, dribbling out of a car, the floppy socks (cue someone saying Nike paid him to do that), and even his death. There can never be another Maravich because there will never be that combination again.

    It's not just about being a high-scoring guard with range. Hersey Hawkins averaged 36 a game. He wasn't Pistol Pete, and not just because he was black. And Jimmer's not Maravich, because of everything listed above.

    Saying there won't be another Maravich doesn't mean he's the best who ever played. But saying he was all show or was overrated isn't right either.

    As for the books, both that came out at the same time are good. The Kriegel one and the one by Wayne Federman and Marshall Terrill. Theirs was "authorized" which meant they had more access to his personal papers than Kriegel. So both offer different perspectives.
     
  5. YGBFKM

    YGBFKM Guest

    Knockout.
     
  6. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    You bastard! You just made Truck Robinson's shit list!
     
  7. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    I do not hate Maravich. In fact I kinda like him, and once really liked him. I believe he is one of the most skilled and entertaining players with the ball that ever lived, and I loved the Kriegal book about him.

    BUT I've grown sick of these ill-informed opinions that grossly distort how good he actually was, that ignore the fact that he had ENORMOUS weaknesses in the areas of the game that don't get shown on the youtube highlights, and that distorted myth seem to grow worse each year. Every time I hear him listed as one of the NBA's all time greats, as far more deserving players are forgotten, I cringe.

    And, on a potentially controversial side note, how do you think a black inner city 1970s player would be perceived with the exact same record, style and personal issues. Picture a black 1970s star who never won anything at any level, who played a style that seemed more about showmanship and stats than wins, that ignored the defensive end, that had high turnover rates and was notorious for attempting wild dipsy doo trick passes in situations where a lower risk pass would've worked just as well, who had serious alcohol/late night drinking issues, etc. You think that guy would be the beloved legend "Pistol Pete" is today? Do you think he'd have had all these books and movies about him? Would we dare list him amongst the NBA's greatest ever?
     
  8. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    That is a really good point.
     
  9. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    This is a fallacy that gets tossed around with Maravich. Can we stop pretending that Maravich is in the same boat as guys like Marino, Barkley, Stockton, Malone, Ewing, Nash, Kidd, Iverson, Miller, etc.--great players who won more than they lost and came damn close but could get never quite get that championship. Maravich never even approached that boat.

    Maravich's issue isn't that he never won a ring, instead it's that his teams were generally HORRIBLE, he lost FAR more games than he won. Something that can't be said for any of the above players or anyone else besides Pete who gets listed amongst the NBA's all time greats.

    Hell, the only two NBA teams he played on that even finished above .500 were the seasons where he was buried at the end of the bench (the 80 Celts) and when he was not his team's best player (the 73 Hawks.. a little known fact: Maravich was not his team's leading scorer or best player on those early Hawks teams, Lou Hudson was). Every team that relied on Pete as the go to guy invariably failed miserably.

    There are few athletes where the mythology has ever outstripped the W-L record as disproportionately as with Maravich. Joe Namath comes to mind, but at least Joe had that one magical Super Bowl season and some major college team glory, whereas a Maravich led team never won anything of significance at any level--ever.


    Really? You know how many statistical categories Maravich ranks in the all time Top 100 in? Only ONE--scoring--where he ranks 98th all time (http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/pts_career.html). No other category does he even make the list. And this is a guy whose style was once accused of being all about piling up stats. And the things statistics don't measure, like guarding people, are what he was WORST at.

    So his statistical numbers don't place him in the top 100, his defense and intangibles certainly don't either, and his record for winning and losing was simply awful. So I'm not sure why it's such "contrarian hyperbole" to suggest he doesn't belong there.
     
  10. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Stoney, I am in partial agreement with many of your points here, but I must also note that one person at the time Maravich played completely disagreed. Red Auerbach. He loved Maravich's game, and brought him to the Celtics in 1980 when Maravich's body had pretty well given out.
    Not saying that makes you wrong, but Red's opinion ought to carry some weight here.
     
  11. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    I remember going to basketball camp when I was like 10 or 11. Every day that week, we'd watch a Pistol Pete instructional video. Dude was amazing. Played way ahead of his time.
     
  12. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    I thought Archie Manning retired the trophy for most overhyped athlete to come out of the SEC.
     
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