Overrated/Underrated: Pistol Pete

[El_Caudillo]

Depending on who you talk to, he was either a proto-Larry Bird, or a total gimmick. What do we think?

[Colbinii]

Total gimmick is closer than any sentence containing Larry Bird.

[Owly]

Depending on who you talk to, he was either a proto-Larry Bird, or a total gimmick. What do we think?

Closer to the latter.
Of course this sort of question depends on where you perceive him to be rated.

He was skilled.
He was entertaining.
Maybe he'd have been better playing college away from his dad (though I think his father applied some pressure). Maybe. A lot of people say this.
There's some stuff to suggest he really cared (though also despite supposedly caring about winning I have the impression he couldn't live with coming off the bench and that's why he didn't stay on in Boston, so ... maybe on his own terms?).
Physical health and mental wellbeing may have been obstructions at times.

That said in his own time whilst overrated due to scoring, there were many cynical voices on him. He was only once an MVP candidate. With considerable overlap, the box composites seem to suggest that considerably less heralded or forgotten players at the same position (e.g. Paul Westphal) may have been not inconsiderably better (and despite never getting an MVP push, other at the time accolades look as good or better). My impression is he was a poor defender and off limited information I don't see a clear impact signal (very pedestrian WoWYR). And I think he got a halo effect from his premature death (and tangentially from enough footage to compile highlight reels, little enough footage that we don't see many full games and also his "Homework" videos).

Depends where one rates him but the NBA just recently put him in their 75 and I've seen as high as 11 (in '88), 15 (in '96) and 11 (in 2010) on published lists. So I'd say often pretty wildly overrated.

[Owly]

Total gimmick is closer than any sentence containing Larry Bird.

I don't know, we can get some accurate ones.

You just need "not", "inverse", "lacking" ...

[70sFan]

Pete wasn't a fraud, but he was never a superstar.

[wojoaderge]

If he hadn't thrown that between-the-legs pass during garbage time of the Jazz's 10 straight victory on January 31th, 1978 he might be rated higher. I believe playing for an expansion team hurt his efficiency

[penbeast0]

Not a player who helped you win in his prime, sort of like a 6-5 lazy version of Allen Iverson, but unlike Iverson, he did sublimate his ego to accept a role player role with the Celtics toward the end of his career.

Didn't mind his stuff with the hopeless Jazz as much as his being unable to focus his talent toward team success in Atlanta.

[Owly]

If he hadn't thrown that between-the-legs pass during garbage time of the Jazz's 10 straight victory on January 31th, 1978 he might be rated higher. I believe playing for an expansion team hurt his efficiency

For clarity this is a reference to how he injured himself.

Fwiw, despite this being (I think) the 9th straight win it only took them to 25-24 and even that is a touch positive as they were outscored by 77 over those first 49 games (or -1.571428571 points diff per game). They go 14-19 the rest of the way, -76 over 33 games (-2.303030303 per game).

Not a player who helped you win in his prime, sort of like a 6-5 lazy version of Allen Iverson, but unlike Iverson, he did sublimate his ego to accept a role player role with the Celtics toward the end of his career.

Didn't mind his stuff with the hopeless Jazz as much as his being unable to focus his talent toward team success in Atlanta.

Maravich did so for 26 games in season. He quit the 80-81 team in camp and there's a particularly ... jarring quote in his own memoir/autobiography

I should have been caught up in the optimistic fervor when I arrived, but I couldn't stop thinking about what might happen if we made it all the way in the playoffs again and I had spent the year on the bench in disgrace.

Maybe he doesn't mean it like that. There is a co-author. There's stuff that's saying he wants to contribute so, yes we know ring doesn't = best player, so he wants to feel he contributed to the winning ... at the same time it feels a bit of a slap to role player.

Even from a sympathetic view it seems starter is very important to him e.g.

Dad would get no satisfaction that his so would one day be recognized as one of the worlds five best. I would never play on a championship team.

Fitch may have been a difficult fit for him. Still ... it seems like he couldn't live with being a bench player on a great team.

[penbeast0]

Ah, never saw that quote before, thanks.

[tsherkin]

I don't think he is over- or underrated at this point. For a time, he was thought of well ahead of where he belonged in any assessment because he didn't really play winning basketball but put up the kind of numbers that oldheads really liked (aka inefficient pure volume scoring and assist production) and he played flashy. Some real skill and talent there, but not nurtured in the right ways at all. An interesting figure in the evolution of the perimeter game, but more as a footnote worth looking at to see the transition taking form than for a dude who was really a titan in the league.

[70sFan]

I'd add that if you want to look at a top tier 1970s guard with modern skillset, then Paul Westphal was the guy. He was extremely skilled player and he actually played relevant basketball during Pete's prime.

[Owly]

I don't think he is over- or underrated at this point. For a time, he was thought of well ahead of where he belonged in any assessment because he didn't really play winning basketball but put up the kind of numbers that oldheads really liked (aka inefficient pure volume scoring and assist production) and he played flashy. Some real skill and talent there, but not nurtured in the right ways at all. An interesting figure in the evolution of the perimeter game, but more as a footnote worth looking at to see the transition taking form than for a dude who was really a titan in the league.

I say why I differ.

Of course it depends on which audience and where one thinks they are.

I think the mainstream overrating is pretty much a given, since his place on the NBA's 75 (and a barely a decade ago published list alluded to above, Beckett's 2010 listing him 11 (five places above Tim Duncan!). Or even a more typical ESPN 74 from 2020, 68th ... I think a more serious, informed view would tend to considerably below that.

But even more generally unless you're going really deep on these lists ... my suspicion is Maravich warrants being lower than most/any serious ranking goes. There's little evidence of positive impact. The box composites miss stuff that he is regarded as or as likely to be weak at (defense and for much of his career turnovers) and yet despite this his Reference box composite peak looks similar to that of unexceptional guards
Maravich: PER 20.5; WS/48 .144, BPM 2.5
Non-ATG, non-HOF guard*: PER 20.3; WS/48 .137; BPM 4.0

Between a high pick, a somewhat iconic look, a lot of flash, being white in an increasingly black league, high scoring, playing where he played in college and his premature death he's taken on a significance in the narrative history of the NBA as widely given but it's a significance in my mind that is coming from the same place, of the same type as that of Jason Williams. He's better, but the status is from flash and generating attention and perhaps marketing/sales (recall one source at the time saying Williams's jersey outsold MJ's in Williams's rookie year, MJ was retired but still) not impact on results on the court.

The more data that's missing the greater range there is. Newer box-oriented metrics seem to tilt pro- scorer and passer types. Still I think it's very possible that in terms of quality of play Maravich might have been a very low significance, low impact player. I don't know if the mean or median position, even among posters here, perhaps even smart well-regarded ones, would get that low. Maybe it would. Maybe I'm wrong in terms of how possible him being that pedestrian is.

*= Eric Murdock

[tsherkin]

I think the mainstream overrating is pretty much a given,

Sure, but they're idiots, so I generally don't lend much credence to mainstream thought at all. They don't know their butt from a hole in the ground where is the sport concerned, so I've long since stopped caring what they think, if one can even use that term. Figuring out if they overrate people is somewhat foolish, because their opinions are based on nonsense and won't be swayed by reason.

[Johnlac1]

Maravich didn't have the mental game of Bird, Robertson, Magic. He never lived up to his potential. Offensively, he could do it all. But despite having great gifts including ballhandling/passing, he never averaged as much as seven assists a game. He could get to the basket at will but preferred to take tough, long jump shots with a man on him.
If he would have played more like he did in his 68 pt game against the Knicks where he drove to the basket many times and took a lot of jump shots from 10-12 feet, he would have had incredible career stats.
And he would have thrived in today's game with the three ball.
But, alas, he never could grasp that the game is about winning first, and entertaining second.
His dad letting him do whatever he wanted at LSU might have ruined him.