Soaring Down South
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Top 5 Power Forwards in Atlanta Hawks History

By Tom Atkinson

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Feb 27, 2016; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; LSU Tigers former basketball player Bob Pettit was honored with a statue on campus before their game against the Florida Gators at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Mandatory Credit: Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 27, 2016; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; LSU Tigers former basketball player Bob Pettit was honored with a statue on campus before their game against the Florida Gators at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Mandatory Credit: Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports /

1. Bob Pettit

Years Spent with Team: 1954-1965.

Statistics (per game with the Hawks): 26.4 points, 16.2 rebounds, 3 assists (blocks, steals not recorded).

Shooting Percentages with Milwaukee/St. Louis: .436/(no three-pointers)/.761.

The Bombardier from Baton Rouge wasn’t meant to be great, but great he was. Bob Pettit changed the game and helped the Hawks’ franchise win its only ever NBA Championship in 1958. Considering that this was during the hegemony of Bill Russell‘s Celtics, that is an impressive feat. An MVP in 1956 (the inaugural MVP award) and 1959, Pettit was an All-Star in every one of his 11 seasons and won the All-Star MVP four times, joint only with Kobe Bryant. Pettit also made the All-NBA First Team ten times between 1955 and 1964 and was the scoring champion in both of his MVP seasons.

When you can sum up a player’s greatness on the league-scale, franchise records almost become irrelevant. Nevertheless, Pettit dominates them. A Hawks’ stalwart, he is third in career games played and second in minutes. In scoring, Pettit trails only ‘Nique in total points scored, having been the first player to reach 20,000 points. He even managed to finish seventh in assists.

In rebounds, Pettit was a machine. He amassed 12,849 boards in his eleven seasons, averaging a whopping 16.2 per game. Pettit even made quite the impression on Bill Russell, who had this to say, via NBA.com:

“Bob made ‘second effort’ a part of the sport’s vocabulary. He kept coming at you more than any man in the game. He was always battling for position, fighting you off the boards.”

Next: History Of Hawks In The Olympics

Pettit even dominates the advanced statistics, like PER (25.3) and win shares, and is the only Hawk to win the MVP award and NBA Championship. Bob Pettit is easily the best power forward in franchise history and could perhaps be the Hawks’ best ever player.

*All statistics via basketball-reference.com.