FanHouse Pete Maravich

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Thursday, there are 40 days remaining.

He was the greatest showman in the history of basketball, the standard by which every flashy-looking hot shot in the last 40 years could be measured against. And not a one has measured up -- never really come close.

Pistol Pete Maravich stood alone in his glory, a virtuoso in a team sport, an artist who made the game so compelling, so captivating, so incredibly wonderful that you never turned away when he had the ball.

Maravich never won big in basketball, but he never stopped believing in the beauty of the game.

He died too young at age 40, yet doctors marveled afterward that he lived as long as he did, leaving basketball a much-more special game by the way he played it. And not many living stars can say that today.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Friday, there are 67 days remaining.

Scoring 100 points in an NBA game was such a phenomenal feat that it may never be matched. Yet that century mark isn't what defined Wilt Chamberlain as the greatest scoring machine in NBA history.

A lot of people can do things once.

Kobe Bryant scored 81. David Thompson had 73. Elgin Baylor and David Robinson each managed 71. Michael Jordan hit 69 and Pete Maravich scored 68.

The magic number is 67.

End of the Bench calls our attention to this mind-blowing clip of Maravich, McAdoo and others playing Horse. It's just Pete's contributions, but you get a general sense of how ridiculous this kind of event would be. Remember, this is what many of us have clamored to have happen over All-Star Weekend. If this is any indication of how it would go, Stern might want to lift his ears up.