Bob Pettit (100 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time)

Tall but thin, Bob Pettit wasn't expected to stand up to the rigors of pro ball in the 1950s, even though he'd been a prolific scorer and rebounder at Louisiana State. What the scouts did not take into account were his inner strength, his determination to succeed, and his willingness to put in whatever amount of hard work it took to reach his goal.

"Bob made 'second effort' a part of the sports vocabulary," said Boston Celtics center Bill Russell. "He kept coming at you more than any man in the game. He was always battling for position, fighting you off the boards."

"He kept coming at you," echoed Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes, a rival forward. "There was no way you could stop him over the course of a game. He was just too strong." Pettit learned about perseverance and second effort early in his career. He was cut from his high school team not once but twice. So he worked endlessly to improve his game, firing countless shots at the basket set up in his backyard. He finally made the squad as a junior and led it to the Louisiana State title as a senior. On a scholarship at LSU, he averaged 27.4 ppg and was twice named an All-American.

The 6-foot-9-inch Pettit, who barely weighed 200 pounds when he turned pro, spent his entire 11-year NBA career with the Hawks, the 1954-55 season in Milwaukee and the next 10 in St. Louis. He proved the skeptics wrong by continuing his high-scoring ways in the NBA and becoming one of the league's top rebounders, winning Rookie of the Year honors in 1955 and going on to become the greatest forward of his era, never averaging less than 20 points and 12 rebounds. He was a brilliant shooter who ranked among the top seven in scoring every year and retired in 1965 as the first player to top 20,000 career points. Twice voted the league's Most Valuable Player, he was an All-Star every year and an All-NBA First Team selection 10 out of 11 times.

Though the Boston Celtics would dominate the NBA during his playing days, Pettit helped the Hawks become the best in the West in the late 1950s. And after they reached the NBA Finals in 1957 but were beaten by Boston, they bounced back the following season to win the NBA Championship, defeating the Celtics in six games in the Finals. Pettit scored 50 points in Game 6, including 19 of his team's last 21 points to nail down the victory.

"Pettit was Mr. Clean, Mr. All-America," said Red Auerbach, then the Celtics coach and later team president. "He was just like John Havlicek-a clean liver, just a super guy. But very, very competitive. He would play all out, whether he was 50 points ahead or 50 behind. It didn't matter. That's the only way he knew how to play-all out."

"Bob Pettit was the consummate pro," said teammate Lenny Wilkens. "He could play in any era because he came to play every night. He was a professional on and off the court. He never let any kind of distraction bother him. When Bob stepped onto the floor, he was ready to play."