Bob Pettit

Also known as Robert Lee Pettit Jr., Robert E. Lee Pettit Jr., Robert Pettit Jr., Robert Pettit

American basketball player and coach

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Country: FR
Active from: 1943-11-14

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

The Sequence Alignment/Map format and SAMtools
· 2009 · cited 58,229x
The Sequence of the Human Genome
· 2001 · cited 10,178x
Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 328 diseases and injuries for 195 countries, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
· 2017 · cited 6,092x
The Complete Genome Sequence of <i>Escherichia coli</i> K-12
· 1997 · cited 5,892x

~14 min read

Article

Robert Lee Pettit Jr. (/ˈpɛtɪt/ PET-it; born December 12, 1932) is an American former professional basketball player. He played 11 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), all with the Milwaukee/St. Louis Hawks (1954–1965). In 1956, he became the first recipient of the NBA's Most Valuable Player Award and he won the award again in 1959. He also won the NBA All-Star Game MVP award four times. As of the end of 2025–2026 regular season, Pettit is still the only regular season MVP in the history of the Hawks. Pettit is the Hawks' franchise leader for most career rebounds (12,849), and most rebounds per game with 16.2.

The first NBA player to score more than 20,000 points, Pettit was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970. He is one of four players who was named to all four NBA anniversary teams and one of only two living members as of 2025 with Bob Cousy. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest power forwards of all time.