5 Youngest MVP Winners in NBA History
Winning the regular season MVP award is one of the most inestimable milestones anyone could ever achieve in the NBA. It sums up the blood, sweat and tears put into the 82 games-long grind, and is the ultimate recognition of the year-long hustle for any player.
To keep up the consistent display of extraordinary playmaking every night is not an easy task. Avoiding injuries, Getting through heartbreaking losses, adjusting to mid-season trades while keeping the foot on the gas during every single game, tends to take a toll on the majority that tend to go for gold. The ones that chug it all up and come out unscathed get to be called the best of the best for that very season.
The Morris Podoloff trophy rests in the hands of a chosen one at the end of every season and leaves not one but many waiting in the queue. Many a time, veterans redefine their discipline levels and perfect their craft all season long, only to be outrun by young, dynamic fresh pair of legs. The following list glorifies the latter, and how they achieved something at so early an age which keeps evading many all throughout their NBA lifetimes.
#5 Bob Petit - 24 years old
After being drafted by Hawks in 1954, Pettit made an immediate impact in the professional basketball circuit, earning Rookie of the Year and first-team All-NBA honours in his initial season in the league. During his sophomore season, he would go on to overwhelm basketball fans all over the world, posting averages of 25.7 points and 16.2 rebounds a night, becoming one of the youngest ballers to lift the MVP trophy.
During his 11-year career, he garnered 10 All-NBA first team selections and was named to 11 All-Star Games. During his career, he was the NBA scoring champion and was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player twice(during the 1955–56 and 1958–59 seasons). Pettit led the Hawks to four berths in the NBA finals (1957, 1958, 1960, and 1961) and to their first NBA championship (1958).
Bob Pettit will always be known as one of the best Power Forwards/Centers to ever live. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970 and was named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history in 1996.