6. Pete Maravich
Pete Maravich is generally considered to be one of the best basketball players in history. Nicknamed “Pistol Pete”, he played shooting guard for LSU during college and picked up numerous College Player of the Year awards. He was also the all-time leading NCAA Division 1 scorer, a record that is still intact to this day.
He spent his professional career playing for the Atlanta Hawks and the Utah Jazz during the 1970s, where he was a 5-time NBA All-Star and led the league in scoring in 1977. But something else happened during his professional career. In 1974, he made a comment in an interview with the Beaver County Times newspaper in which he stated, “I don’t want to play 10 years in the NBA and die of a heart attack at 40.”
In what appeared to be a cruel twist of fate, Maravich did die of a heart attack at the age of 40. Despite being in seemingly good health, Maravich had a rare heart condition that he developed after being born without a left coronary artery.
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