Timeline Bob Pettit

Bob Pettit 15

• 1947 Pettit is cut from his high school team Twice, as a sophomore in Baton Rouge He put a hoop on the garage and practised alone. He grew nine inches and came back.
• 1950 A state championship for Baton Rouge High And more than a dozen college offers He chose to stay home and play for LSU.
• 1952 – 1954 Pettit leads the Southeastern Conference in scoring All three of his varsity seasons, ending at 31.4 points a game Freshmen could not play varsity then, so his college career was only three years long.
• 1954 Drafted second overall by the Milwaukee Hawks A 6ft 9in centre told to learn a position that did not yet exist He was moved away from the basket and became the prototype of the power forward.
• 1955 Rookie of the Year The last season the Hawks played in Milwaukee 20.4 points and 13.8 rebounds a game in his first year.
• 1956 The first NBA Most Valuable Player The award's inaugural year, at 25.7 points a game Seventy years later he is still the only regular-season MVP in the franchise's history.
• 1958 The only Finals series Bill Russell ever lost Eleven titles in thirteen years, and this was the exception St Louis has not won a championship since.
• 1958 All-Star Game MVP The second of four - a record he held alone for fifty years Only Kobe Bryant has matched it.
• 1958 Fifty points in the game that won the title Hawks 110 Celtics 109, Game 6 at Kiel Auditorium He scored 19 of the Hawks' last 21 points, the winner a tip-in with 15 seconds left.
• 1959 A second MVP Leading the league at 29.2 points a game The Celtics dynasty took every title around him. He kept scoring anyway.
• 1964 The first player to score 20,000 points In his tenth season He retired as the NBA's career scoring leader and second in rebounds.
• 1965 Pettit retires after eleven seasons 26.4 points and 16.2 rebounds a game, an All-Star every year He went into banking in New Orleans rather than stay in the game.
• 1970 Inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame Five years after retiring One of only three LSU players in the Hall, with Maravich and O'Neal.
• 1996 Named to all four NBA anniversary teams The 25th, 35th, 50th and 75th A vanishingly small group of players selected across every era of the league.
• 2026 Bob Pettit dies Aged 93, announced by LSU His number 50 is retired at LSU and his number 9 by the Hawks. Bronze statues stand outside both.