Bob Pettit, the first NBA MVP and the man who delivered St. Louis its only NBA championship, has died at 93.
Pettit died Wednesday, Sept. 23, at his home in Metairie, Louisiana. LSU, his alma mater, announced the news Thursday. No cause was given. He is survived by three children and 10 grandchildren. His wife, Carole, died in 2010.
For a generation of St. Louis sports fans, Pettit was not a distant Hall of Famer. He was the face of the Hawks at Kiel Auditorium — the lean 6-foot-9 forward they called “Big Blue,” the player who turned a relocated Milwaukee franchise into a title team and gave this city a night that still ranks among its greatest sporting moments.
On April 12, 1958, Pettit scored 50 points and grabbed 19 rebounds in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. He accounted for 19 of St. Louis’s last 21 points. The Hawks beat Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics 110-109 and won the only championship in franchise history. That 50-point closeout stood as a Finals record for decades. Teammate Ed Macauley later called it one of the greatest individual performances in sports.
Pettit made the All-Star team in all 11 of his NBA seasons, all with the same franchise. He won the league’s first MVP award in 1956 after leading the NBA in scoring (25.7) and rebounding (16.2). He won MVP again in 1959, when he averaged a then-record 29.2 points. He was All-Star Game MVP four times — a mark later matched only by Kobe Bryant. He made All-NBA First Team 10 times. In 1964 he became the first player in league history to reach 20,000 career points. He retired after the 1964-65 season with 20,880 points (26.4 per game) and 12,849 rebounds (16.2), then the NBA’s career scoring lead and second in rebounds.
He never averaged fewer than 20 points or 12 rebounds in a season.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 1970, called him “a sleek, skilled big man who revolutionized the forward position” and “a true giant of the game.” He is one of only four players named to the NBA’s 25th, 35th, 50th, and 75th anniversary teams.
Robert Lee Pettit Jr. was born Dec. 12, 1932, in Baton Rouge. He was cut from the Baton Rouge High varsity as a freshman and sophomore. He grew, practiced in the backyard at his father’s insistence, and as a senior led the school to a state title. At LSU he became a two-time All-American, led the SEC in scoring three straight years, and took the Tigers to their first Final Four in 1953. LSU retired his No. 50 — the first athlete in any sport so honored by the school. A statue of him stands outside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Milwaukee Hawks drafted him second overall in 1954. He won Rookie of the Year, then moved with the team to St. Louis in 1955. Coach Red Holzman shifted him from the college post to forward. Pettit learned to face the basket, attack the offensive glass, and get to the line. “Offensive rebounds were worth eight to 12 points a night to me,” he once said. “Then I’d get another eight to 10 at the free-throw line.”
The Hawks reached the Finals four times in five years, all against Boston. They lost Game 7 in double overtime in 1957. They won in 1958. They lost again in 1960 and 1961. Pettit was two wins short of three titles. The Celtics dynasty that followed made his 1958 night even more singular.
After basketball he worked in banking and later co-founded a financial consulting firm in the New Orleans area. He remained a regular at LSU games and, for years, a New Orleans Pelicans season-ticket holder.
St. Louis never got another NBA title after the Hawks left for Atlanta in 1968. Kiel Auditorium is gone. The numbers have been passed. What remains is the memory of a player who showed up every night, finished every season as an All-Star, and on one April evening at Kiel carried a city on his shoulders.
Bob Pettit was 93.
