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Bob Pettit: NBA's first MVP recipient and 11-time All-Star dies aged 93
BBC • • general
Key Points:
- Bob Pettit, the first NBA MVP, has died at age 93; he won the award twice and was the first player to reach 20,000 points.
- Pettit played 11 seasons with the Milwaukee/St. Louis Hawks, winning the NBA title in 1958 and reaching two more finals in 1960 and 1961.
- He was an 11-time NBA All-Star, retired in 1965 with career averages of 26.4 points and 16.2 rebounds per game, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1971.
- Pettit starred at LSU before his professional career, where his number 50 jersey was retired, and LSU praised him as a defining figure for the modern power forward.
- The Basketball Hall of Fame called Pettit "a true giant of the game," but no cause of death has been disclosed.
