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RETIRED · No. 7

Pete Maravich

No one scored like Pistol Pete. His 3,667 points at LSU, 44.2 a game while playing for his father Press, with no three-point line and no varsity as a freshman, remain the NCAA Division I men's record. Traded from Atlanta to the young New Orleans Jazz in 1974, he gave the franchise its first star for five-plus seasons.

The nickname came from his habit of shooting from the side, as if holding a revolver. Five times an All-Star and four times All-NBA, he finished with a part-season in Boston and entered the Hall of Fame among its youngest inductees. He died at 40 in January 1988, collapsing during a pickup game from an undetected heart defect, and made the NBA's 50th and 75th Anniversary teams.

HOW HE CAME & WENTThe expansion Jazz gave Atlanta a package of picks for him in May 1974, mocked as the Louisiana Purchase. He moved with the club to Utah in 1979, but his knees kept him out of practice and Tom Nissalke did not play men who missed practice. Utah waived him that January.

Full name
Peter Press Maravich
Jazz tenure — New Orleans & Utah
1974–80
Position
Guard
Born
1947, Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
Died
1988
Height
6′5″ (196 cm)
Weight
198 lb (90 kg)
College
Louisiana State
Drafted
1970, 1st round (No. 3), Atlanta
Why this player is hard to find
Pistol Pete — the franchise's first star and the reason the Jazz existed in New Orleans at all. Hall of Fame signatures exist but command extraordinary sums, and he died in 1988. Securing an authentic one is the single hardest financial hurdle in this project.
Do you have anything signed by Pete Maravich?
A card, an index card, a photo, a program — anything authentic. I'm a collector building an autograph archive of every player in Utah Jazz history (319 of 370 so far). I cover postage both ways and answer every message.

✉️ contact@everyjazzman.com
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With the Jazz

PETE MARAVICH · 1974–80 · PER GAME
SEASONTEAMGMPGPPGRPGAPGSPGBPGFG%3P%FT%
1974–75NOJ7936.121.55.36.21.50.2.419—.811
1975–76NOJ6238.325.94.85.41.40.4.459—.811
1976–77NOJ7341.731.15.15.41.20.3.433—.835
1977–78NOJ5040.827.03.66.72.00.2.444—.870
1978–79NOJ4937.222.62.55.01.20.4.421—.841
1979–80UTA1730.717.12.43.20.90.2.412.636.820
JAZZ TOTAL6 SEASONS33038.325.24.35.61.40.3.434.636.829

Season by season, regular season, with this franchise only. More info: Basketball-Reference ↗  ·  Wikipedia ↗

Did you know

PETE MARAVICH · 12 NOTES
  • Scored 68 points against the Knicks in 1977, a record for a guard at the time.
  • Elected to the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1987, months before his death at 40.
  • The autopsy revealed he had been born without a left coronary artery — doctors said his entire ten-year NBA career happened on a heart that should not have allowed it.
  • The floppy grey socks were superstition — his father Press, who coached him at LSU, built both the offence and the legend around his son.
  • The Jazz waived him just months after the move to Utah — he finished his career in Boston, playing his final games alongside a rookie named Larry Bird.
  • As a schoolboy he won a five-dollar bet by spinning a basketball on his finger for a full hour, switching fingers when one began to bleed.
  • After he rallied LSU from fifteen down to beat Georgia in overtime, Georgia's own cheerleaders carried him off the court.
  • As a boy he dribbled a basketball out the window of his father's car at 20 miles an hour and down the aisle of a movie theater.
  • He wore "Pistol" on the back of his jersey instead of his surname.
  • Bob Dylan, who had watched him play in New Orleans, began writing the song "Dignity" the afternoon he learned of Maravich's death.
  • He tore a meniscus against the Buffalo Braves on January 31, 1978, and the surgery and heavy knee brace that followed cost him most of the next two seasons.
  • The young franchise wanted him partly as an attraction, since he was already a celebrity in Louisiana from his LSU years.