Pistol Pete's Shot Still Rings Out

With the NBA and its corporate partners descending on Pistol Pete's old playground this weekend, the spotlight has shone on not only the legend of Maravich, but also on a state's rich basketball treasures.

The bayou indeed takes its ball seriously. Shaquille O'Neal, Reed and Joe Dumars were named to the state's all-century college team -- make that the all-century second team.

Yes, not even a Louisiana State freak-of-nature phenomenon or two small-college legends -- who each won a pair of NBA championship rings -- could crack a starting five of Maravich, Bob Pettit, Robert Parish, Karl Malone and that Ragin' Cajun, Dwight "Bo" Lamar. The three-time all-American at Southwestern Louisiana averaged 31.2 points per game between 1969 and '73.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Calvin Natt. Andrew Toney. Bob Love. Larry Wright, the former Washington Bullet.

And then there are the kids who moved away, such as Antawn Jamison, the Wizards forward making his second all-star appearance in four years. Jamison was 13 when his father, a construction worker, moved the family from Shreveport, La., to Charlotte after Hurricane Hugo unfortunately created all kinds of building jobs in North Carolina.

"To come back after Katrina and fix up homes like we did yesterday, to see that kind of devastation again, is a little surreal," Jamison said.

Bill Russell left Monroe, La., when he was 8 years old, because his father, who moved the family to Oakland, Calif., did not want his children to grow up in, at the time, an intense environment of racism.

Some of the state's biggest basketball names remember better players who never made it to the NBA -- such as Benny Anders, a star on Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler's University of Houston "Phi Slamma Jamma" teams.

"He was unreal," Malone said this afternoon, watching the East all-stars practice in downtown New Orleans. "I never believed why he didn't make it."

"You want to know a great player?" Jamison asked rhetorically. "Snapper. I never knew his real name, but he lived right next door to me. About six years older, probably 15 or 16. Had this nice jump shot. Ruled the playground. I could never beat Snapper."

On the litany of Louisiana hoop legends go.

"You got to put Bob Hopkins in there," Aaron James said of the former Grambling great. "Oh, you got to put Aaron James in there, too."

James was a tremendous small forward at Grambling and played five seasons with the New Orleans Jazz. He still calls his late, great teammate "Peter" because at the end of his life, the born-again Maravich embraced his biblical name.

"I still remember Peter when I was a rookie with the Jazz and we lived in the same area," James said. "I had this old Volkswagen Beetle and he had a Porsche Carrera. After practice, he would tell me, 'Hey rook, get your car.' He would give me a five-minute head start. I'd be gunnin' it and all of a sudden you just hear this woop. He would fly past. We called him 'Speed Racer.' "

Maravich scored 3,667 points in his fabled college career at LSU -- he averaged an unfathomable 44.2 points per game -- and became the most improvisational, freewheeling player the NBA had known until his retirement in 1980.

His passes were thought to be apparitions at the time, but they have nothing on Maravich's growing aura today.

Aaron James and Jackie Maravich speak often, keeping the bond alive. In earnest, Pistol Pete's former teammate says, "He might not be here, but he is still here -- you know what I mean?"