Bob Lanier, who as a middle for the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks within the Seventies and ’80s parlayed a deft left-handed hook shot, a delicate midrange jumper and sturdy rebounding abilities right into a Corridor of Fame profession, died on Tuesday in Phoenix. He was 73.
The N.B.A. stated he died after a brief sickness however supplied no different particulars.
Lanier, who stood 6-foot-11 and weighed about 250 kilos, excelled in an period of dominant facilities like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nate Thurmond and Wes Unseld.
“Guys didn’t change groups as a lot, so if you have been dealing with the Bulls or the Bucks or New York, you had all these rivalries,” he told NBA.com in 2018. “Lanier in opposition to Jabbar! Jabbar in opposition to Willis Reed! After which Chamberlain and Artis Gilmore and Invoice Walton! You had all these nice huge males, and the sport was performed from inside out.”
He added: “It was a rougher sport, a way more bodily sport that we performed within the ’70s. You may steer individuals with elbows. They began reducing down on the variety of fights by fining individuals extra. Oh, it was a tough ’n’ tumble sport.”
As a Pistons rookie within the 1970-71 season, Lanier shared time at middle with Otto Moore. In his second season, as a full-time starter, he averaged 25.7 points and 14.2 rebounds a game, placing him within the league’s high 10 in each classes.
“He understood the small nuances of the sport,” Dave Bing, a Pistons teammate and fellow Corridor of Famer, stated in a video biography of Lanier proven on Fox Sports Detroit in 2012. “He might shoot the 18-to-20-footer in addition to any guard. He had a hook shoot — no one however Kareem had a hook shot like him. He might do something he needed to do.”
Lanier wore what have been believed to be dimension 22 sneakers. In 1989, nevertheless, a consultant of Converse disputed that notion, saying that they have been in actual fact dimension 18 ½. No matter their precise dimension, a pair of Lanier’s sneakers, bronzed, is within the assortment of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
Throughout 9 full seasons with the Pistons, Lanier performed in seven All-Star Video games. He was elected most dear participant of the 1974 All-Star Recreation, during which he led all scorers with 24 factors.
However the Pistons had solely 4 profitable seasons throughout his time with the workforce and by no means superior very far within the playoffs. The roster was usually in flux. Coaches got here and went. Lanier handled knee accidents and different bodily setbacks.
“It was like a life unfulfilled,” he advised Fox Sports activities Detroit.
In early 1980, with the Pistons’ file at 14-40, the workforce traded Lanier to the Milwaukee Bucks for a youthful middle, Kent Benson, and a first-round 1980 draft choose. Annoyed by the Pistons’ lack of success, Lanier had requested to be despatched to a playoff contender.
“I’m form of relieved, however I’m form of unhappy, too,” he advised The Detroit Free Press. “I’ve received lots of good recollections of Detroit.”
Lanier averaged 22.7 factors and 11.8 rebounds a sport with the Pistons.
Robert Jerry Lanier Jr. was born on Sept. 10, 1948, in Buffalo to Robert and Nannie Lanier. Younger Bob was 6-foot-5 by the point he was a sophomore in highschool, and he performed effectively sufficient there to be wooed by dozens of schools. He selected St. Bonaventure College in upstate Allegany, N.Y.
He was a sensation there, averaging 27.6 points and 15.7 rebounds over three seasons.
In 1970, the Bonnies defeated Villanova to win the East Regional finals of the N.C.A.A. males’s basketball match, sending them to the Closing 4. However Lanier injured his knee in the course of the sport, forcing the Bonnies to face Jacksonville within the nationwide semifinal sport with out him. St. Bonaventure misplaced, 91-83.
“I didn’t even know on the time I tore my knee up,” Lanier advised The Buffalo Information in 2007. “However after I ran again down the courtroom and tried to pivot, my leg collapsed. I didn’t know on the time I had torn my M.C.L.”
Lanier was nonetheless recuperating from knee surgical procedure when the Pistons selected him No. 1 total within the N.B.A. draft; he was additionally chosen No. 1 by the New York (now Brooklyn) Nets of the American Basketball Affiliation. He shortly signed with Detroit.
Though he had statistically higher years with the Pistons, Lanier loved extra workforce success with the Bucks (and in addition performed in yet one more All-Star Recreation). Below Coach Don Nelson, the Bucks gained 60 video games in the course of the 1980-81 season, and so they superior to the Jap Convention finals in 1982-83 and 1983-84.
Lanier was additionally president of the gamers’ union, the Nationwide Basketball Gamers Affiliation, and helped negotiate a collective bargaining agreement in 1983 that prevented a strike.
Early within the 1983-84 season, his final as a participant, Lanier grew to become offended with Invoice Laimbeer, the Pistons’ middle, for riling him below the boards on the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich. Lanier retaliated with a left hook that leveled Laimbeer and broke his nostril.
The act not solely earned Lanier a $5,000 high quality; it additionally delayed the retirement of his No. 16 jersey by the Pistons till 1993. The Bucks retired his quantity in late 1984.
He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.
In retirement, he owned a advertising agency and labored extensively with the N.B.A. as a world ambassador and particular assistant to David Stern, the league’s longtime commissioner, and Adam Silver, his successor. Lanier was additionally an assistant coach below Nelson with the Golden State Warriors in the course of the 1994-95 season and changed him as interim coach for the ultimate 37 video games of the season after Nelson’s resignation.
Info on survivors was not instantly obtainable.
Lanier stated that after he retired, he was much less more likely to be acknowledged by the general public than when he was a participant. After Shaquille O’Neal, one of many league’s most dominating facilities, got here alongside within the early Nineteen Nineties, individuals figured he will need to have been O’Neal’s father, he advised NBA.com in 2018.
“‘You’re sporting them huge sneakers,’” he stated individuals would inform him. “I simply associate with it. ‘Yeah, I’m Shaq’s dad.’”
