Friday, July 10, 2015

No wonder Pete Maravich scored so much!

In the 1970 season (Maravich's final year), he shot 1168 shots and the team shot 2403, so he took 48.6% of the teams shots that season. He made 44.7% of them. It is interesting to note that the other four starters all made at least 50% of their shots, and two of them made over 56% of them. Never hurts to be the coach's son, does it?

Granted, there is another side of the story. Maravich received the lion's share of the opposition's attention, probably being double-teamed a lot, and his teammates benefitted from the focus the defense put on Pete. My point is that Maravich was a greater passer and ball-handler than he was a shooter. (His passing was unbelievable.) If he had been more of a distributor and less of a scorer, he might have averaged a paltry 30 points/game, and his team might have won more. But, he was the draw; the fans came to see Pete, and Daddy Press knew that. Pete sold lots of tickets, but did not win many championships.

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