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Robert Jerry Lanier Jr. (born September 10, 1948 in Buffalo, New York) was a professional basketball player for the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks of the NBA. He starred at Buffalo's Bennett High where he graduated in 1966. He played collegiately at St. more...

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Bonaventure University, where he put the university on the map.

Lanier was a three-time Converse All-America selection (1968-1970), and in 1970, he led St. Bonaventure to the NCAA Final Four, however, he was injured late in the regional championship game and did not participate in Bona's national semi final loss to Artis Gilmore-led Jacksonville University. That year he was named Coach and Athlete Magazine player of the year, and the ECAC Player of the Year.

Lanier was drafted by the Detroit Pistons and was named to the All-Rookie Team following the 1970-71 season. He starred for Detroit until being traded to Milwaukee in 1980. In his five seasons with the Bucks, they won the division championship each year. The same year he retired, in 1984, he was awarded the Oscar Robertson Leadership Award.

In his 14 NBA seasons, Lanier averaged 20.1 points and 10.1 rebounds per game while shooting a respectable 51.4 percent from the field. He played in six NBA All-Star Games, and was named MVP of the 1974 game. Lanier was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame and had his #16 jersey retired by both the Pistons and the Bucks.

In 1994-95, he became interim head coach of the Golden State Warriors for 37 games after Don Nelson stood down, in which he compiled a 12-25 win-loss record.

Trivia

In the comedy Airplane!, there is a funny scene in which a boy is invited into the cockpit of a jetliner, and then claims that the co-pilot (played by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) is in fact Kareem. Kareem, playing in character, denies being the basketball star, insisting instead that he is merely Captain Roger Murdock, the plane's co-pilot. The boy then states that he thinks Kareem is great, but that his father thinks the Lakers great "doesn't work hard on defense..." and that he "doesn't try... except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar to snarl "the hell I don't", followed by "Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes".

Read more at Wikipedia.org