Sport: Jumping Man

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The lithe, well-muscled young man took a pass in the corner of the court and whirled for a jump shot. A Detroit Pistons defender bumped him heavily with his hip. Tipped sideways in midair, Bob Pettit shot anyway. The ball swished cleanly through the hoop, and the St. Louis Hawks went on to a 104-100 victory. In the stands at Detroit's Olympia Stadium, a basketball-wise visitor, the Minneapolis Lakers' Coach John Kundla, shook his head in admiration. "I've been in this league twelve years," he said, "and I coached George Mikan, but I think Pettit is the best all-round player I've ever seen."

This year, thanks largely to Robert Lee Pettit, 26, St. Louis made a ruin of the National Basketball Association's Western Division, clinched the title three weeks ago. Pettit holds a long lead in the individual scoring race, at week's end had scored 1,886 points, was averaging 29 a game, needed only a trifling 17 in each of the remaining seven regular season games to smash the alltime single season scoring record of 2,001 set last year by Detroit's George Yardley.

Star from the Start. Ever since he entered the N.B.A. off the campus of Louisiana State University in 1954, the 6-ft. gin. Pettit has been a star. He has never been lower than fourth in the league scoring race, won it in the 1955-56 season, might have repeated in the past two years had he not been handicapped by a broken hand and arm fracture (he finished second in 1956-57, third last season). Key to Pettit's prowess is a one-handed jump shot that he fires from anywhere within basket range the moment he has a teammate to screen for him. Fast for a big man, he follows his shots to the basket, is considered the league's best offensive rebounder. With an ever-improving sense of timing, his defensive play is now much better. Assigned to guard Detroit's towering (7 ft.) Walt Dukes last week, Pettit held him to just 2 points (while he scored 24 himself), out-rebounded the tree-tall Dukes 7 to 6.

They Also Serve. Pettit is all the more devastating because of his strong supporting cast. Opponents must not neglect his fellow forward, 6-ft. 4-in. Cliff Hagan, a driving, hook-shooting jack-in-the-box who regularly outjumps players much taller than himself. Hagan ranks fifth in the scoring race, averages 23.7 points a game. Says New York Knickerbockers Coach Fuzzy Levane ruefully: "Before you even start a game, these two guys are going to get 60 points against you." Together, Pettit and Hagan form the most fearsome one-two scoring punch since the days when Mikan and Jim Pollard led the Lakers to five championships in six years.

Pettit modestly credits much of his success to Teammates Charlie Share, the hulking (6 ft. 11 in., 235 Ibs.) center and captain of the Hawks, and Slater Martin, playmaking guard who at 5 ft. 10 in. is the smallest man in the league. "Share swings between me and an opposing player and holds the other guy off so I have time to take a shot," he explains. "Martin rifles the ball with such accuracy on the fast break that I get to it just at the right time." But in basketball there is no substitute for scoring points at a record clip, and Bob Pettit is doing just that.