The Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich

I first heard about the book Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich when I read an excerpt from it in Sports Illustrated last year.  I thought the excerpt was pretty good.  It mentioned how Pete Maravich, an NBA all-star during the 1970’s, is the only player among those named as the top 50 players who would do better in today’s NBA than during his own time.  It also mentioned how Pete’s father, Press, a college basketball coach, had him doing impressive basketball drills soon after he learned to walk.  It described Pete’s performance in a game he played when he went to LSU and impressively helped his team win in overtime.  The excerpt made Maravich’s story seem fascinating and I thought the book would be equally fascinating.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.  The article contained all the fascinating parts of the book.  It’s not that I don’t find Maravich interesting.  His story along with his father’s parallels the evolution of professional basketball.   However, the story is multi-faceted.  It includes struggle, success, excitement, influence, dynamic relationships, and tragedy.  Rather than delving into one or a few of these facets, the author tries to cover them all and ultimately doesn’t get very deep into any of them.  The result is a shallow, uneven work that didn’t leave me feeling like I knew Pete Maravich, Press Maravich, or the evolution of the NBA much better than before reading it.

If the book does have a focus it seems to be more on the tragic aspects of Maravich’s life:  his alcoholic mother, his never winning a championship in college or the pros, his premature passing among other tragedies.  I would have liked to have learned more about what made him a great and revolutionary player.  I wanted the author to take me through one of his games, give me a play-by-play just as the SI excerpt did for the LSU game.  But all I got were descriptions of his teammates resenting him, his playing basketball with no feelings showing on his face, and his untimely injuries and ailments.  The story only gets more hopeful towards the end after Maravich embraces Christianity and becomes an evangelist only to pass away early and leave his children struggling to live up to his name.

I did enjoy reading about the NBA in the 1970’s when the Jazz had their home in New Orleans and coaches valued team ball and fundamentals over the flashly plays and superstar highlights now common in NBA.  There’s also an interesting section on how the African Americans slowly integrated into college and pro basketball in the 50’s and 60’s.

Overall, the book is readable but it doesn’t tell a very profound story despite its potentially fascinating subject matter.