Bob McAdoo

Robert Allen McAdoo Jr. (born September 25, 1951) is an American former professional basketball player and coach.

Out of high school, McAdoo initially lacked the academic test scores required by the Division I schools, so he chose to enroll at Vincennes University, then a junior college, in Vincennes, Indiana from 1969 through 1971.

At Vincennes, McAdoo averaged 19.3 points and 10 rebounds in 1969–70 and 25.0 points and 11.0 rebounds in 1970–71.

Vincennes University won the NJCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship in 1970, with McAdoo scoring 27 points in the championship game.

His roommate was teammate Foots Walker.

McAdoo was named a Junior College All-American as a sophomore in 1971.

McAdoo played for Team USA at the 1971 Pan American Games, in the summer 1971, averaging 11.0 points per game.

"We didn't really recruit him," Coach Dean Smith of North Carolina said.

"His mother called us to start it. She said all the other schools were recruiting him. Why weren't we?"

McAdoo enrolled at the University of North Carolina in 1971, the only junior college player Dean Smith recruited in his career.

McAdoo, playing alongside Bobby Jones, led Smith's 1971–72 Tar Heels to a 26–5 record and the Final Four of the 1972 NCAA University Division basketball tournament.

McAdoo averaged 19.5 points and 10.1 rebounds.

He was named first-team All-American.

He also earned MVP honors at the ACC tournament.

Citing family hardship, McAdoo sought and won early eligibility for the 1972 NBA draft under the "hardship" clause that existed until 1977.

McAdoo consulted with Coach Dean Smith, who encouraged him to go to the NBA.

McAdoo said, "When I left, a lot of people were very angry and upset. But Dean gave me his blessing. He told me, 'If they're going to offer you this kind of money, I think you should leave to help you and your family.' I had his blessing. My mother was totally against it," McAdoo added, "but my father and Dean Smith were the guys who got me to move."

McAdoo sought and won early eligibility in the 1972 NBA draft.

However, it was rumored that McAdoo had signed with the Virginia Squires of the rival American Basketball Association after a "secret" ABA draft in which names of those drafted were not made public.

Even though no contract was produced and McAdoo denied it, NBA Commissioner Walter Kennedy reportedly advised NBA teams not to draft McAdoo.

Other reports were that a contract was signed and voided, because McAdoo was too young to have signed it and that Buffalo somehow knew this.

Later, McAdoo was indeed noted as the No. 1 pick of the 1972 American Basketball Association Draft.

Buffalo acted anyway, and McAdoo was selected with the No. 2 overall pick by the Buffalo Braves (now the Los Angeles Clippers), after rumors that contract talks between the Portland Trail Blazers and McAdoo did not come to fruition with the first pick.

LaRue Martin was selected by Portland.

McAdoo signed with the Braves and quickly became one of the NBA's premier players.

He won the 1973 NBA Rookie of the Year Award and was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team.

He earned the first of three consecutive NBA scoring titles in only his second season.

McAdoo was frustrated with Buffalo's losing in his rookie season, saying, "Here I was sitting at Buffalo, we were on the way to losing 61 games and we didn't have any players. My wife could have outrun those people."

He played 14 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), where he was a five-time NBA All-Star and named the NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1975.

He won two NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers during their Showtime era in the 1980s.

In 2000, McAdoo was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

He was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.

McAdoo played center for the majority of his career.

In his 21-season playing career, he spent 14 seasons in the NBA and his final seven in the Lega Basket Serie A in Italy.

McAdoo is one of the few players who have won both NBA and the FIBA European Champions Cup (EuroLeague) titles as a player.

He later won three more NBA titles in 2006, 2012 and 2013 as an assistant coach with the Miami Heat.

McAdoo was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina.

His mother, Vandalia, taught at his grade school, and his father, Robert, was a custodian at North Carolina A&T University.

McAdoo attended Ben L. Smith High School, where he not only participated in basketball and track but was also in the marching band as a saxophone player.

As a senior, he led Smith to the state basketball semifinals as well as to the state track tournament, where he set a new state high-jump record of 6 feet and 7 inches, beating out future North Carolina teammate Bobby Jones.