Turn back the clock – Bill Laimbeer
Posted by pistonsnation
To celebrate the Detroit Shock being up one game to none on the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA Finals I deceided to break out this old pic of Shock coach & Pistons’ living legend, Bill Laimbeer.
Bill spent a year in Italy playing for Pinti Inox of Brescia after being drafted in the 3rd round (65th overall) of the 1979 NBA Draft out of Notre Dame by the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs didn’t offer Bill a contract right away so he went to Europe. Bill put up numbers overseas to the tune of 21.1 ppg and 12.5 rpg. This is a picture from that overseas stint, and I have to believe it’s one of the very few you’ll ever find, so soak it in.
Just for good measure here’s a few Bill Laimbeer FYI’s:
- Talk about ironic, Lambs was born in Boston, grew up in suburban Chicago, and went to high school in Southern California. Home to Bad Boy Pistons 3 biggest rivals.
- In 1974 Bill played a sleestack on the tv show “Land of the Lost”
- Laimbeer teamed with three future Pistons teammates (at different times) while at Notre Dame. Adrian Dantley, Kelly Tripucka, & Orlando Woolridge
- Bill was a four time NBA all-star
- Won the rebounding title in 1985-86 (13.1 rpg) breaking Moses Malone’s five year run
- Had the highest defensive rebound total from 1982-1990
- 19th player in league history to collect 10,000 points & 10,000 boards
- Career 83% free thrower
- The ire of the 1994 Beastie Boys track “Tough Guy”
- Played himself in two movies; Hot Shots & Forget Paris
- Star of the totally radical SNES video game “Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball”
- Once told Sports Illustrated “I don’t fight. I agitate, then walk away.” Classic!
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Bill Laimbeer, Pistons historical society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
[...] PistonsNation offers a Bill Laimbeer retrospective, complete with the only picture I’ve ever seen of Lambs playing in Italy before his NBA rookie year. [...]
September 10th, 2007 at 5:49 pm