“He shined my shoes and I gave him $300”: When Pete Maravich hilariously revealed what he did with his money after becoming first million dollar contract player

Pete Maravich

Pete Maravich, or ‘Pistol Pete’ as he’s better known, quickly became one of the NBA’s greatest offensive talents, resulting in him being one of the first million dollar contract players in history.

He played with the finesse and skill of a modern day NBA offensive superstar while making highlight level plays in the 70s . He started his career off with the Atlanta Hawks, and he quickly became one of the best scorers in the game.

He averaged 23.2 points per game in his rookie season, and while he had somewhat of a sophomore slump, he quickly rebounded and improved his scoring numbers year by year.

Pete carried over his game from college perfectly into the NBA. During his time in LSU, he averaged 44.2 points per game, standing as an NBA record which led to a landmark deal from the Atlanta Hawks.

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Pete Maravich earned his way to a million dollar contract

That style of play and that level of offensive talent impressed the Hawks so much to where they offered Pistol Pete a 1.9 million dollar contract.

At the time, that was the largest contract ever in NBA history. With inflation, that contract would be worth about 14 million right now, which goes to show just how crazy his deal was at the time.

His razzling, dazzling, highlight-ridden style of play also caught the attention of the Harlem Globetrotters who offered him a deal as well. Pete had an offer from the ABA too, but eventually, he chose to go with the Hawks. Pete had his best season in the 1976-77 season where he was the leading scorer in the NBA, averaging 31.1 points per game for the New Orleans Jazz.

When Pete received his contract, he didn’t know what to do with that much money, and so it led to a lot of questionable decisions. In the following video, you can see Pete talk about what it meant to receive so much money and what he did with it at around the 4:15 mark including giving $300 to a shoe-shiner.

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Post Edited By: Ashish Priyadarshi
Atlanta Hawks NBA Pete Maravich

About the author

Ashish Priyadarshi

Ashish Priyadarshi is The SportsRush's content manager and editor. Ashish freelanced for 1 year in the NFL division before taking on an editorial role in the company. He then tacked on managing content while adding on a writing role in the NBA division. Ashish has been closely following the NFL and NBA since the 2012 season when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and Derrick Rose was at the height of his powers. Since then, Ashish has focused on honing his knowledge for both leagues in, even writing crossover pieces. In his free time, Ashish is an avid basketball player, he loves to watch movies and TV shows, immersing himself in the cinematic world. Ashish studies computer science and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and would love to mesh his love for sports with his technical skills.

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