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Bucks to honor Bob Lanier on Feb 20
Bucks to re-dedicate Lanier

I picked on them for announcing the other ones so late, have to give more credit this time around.

Thats cool. But how many times is the Bucks PR gonna do things like this to get people in the stands? Next thing you know there going to retire BigDog's jersey! They are hurting to get people at games!

Magic 32 wrote:Thats cool. But how many times is the Bucks PR gonna do things like this to get people in the stands? Next thing you know there going to retire BigDog's jersey! They are hurting to get people at games!

well in all fairness they finally decided to get rid of those ratty banners hanging from the rafters of the BC. They are obviously going to be re-retiring everyone's number.

Captain Erv 40 wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



well in all fairness they finally decided to get rid of those ratty banners hanging from the rafters of the BC. They are obviously going to be re-retiring everyone's number.

That is true!

Can anyone tell me why we have Lanier's jersey retired in the first place? Obviously I'm too young to have seen him play, but the statistics suggest he was a shadow of his former self when he came here for those four and a half seasons.

skones wrote:Can anyone tell me why we have Lanier's jersey retired in the first place? Obviously I'm too young to have seen him play, but the statistics suggest he was a shadow of his former self when he came here for those four and a half seasons.

Those numbers shocked me and I remember watching him play. If Bogut put up 13.5/5.9 we would run him out of town. My guess is we retired him for what he did in his career 20/10 and not for what he did as a Buck.

Lanier was a great player but not with the Bucks. He was suppose to be the "missing" piece to a title. But it didn't happen.

Great guy in the locker room and community as well. But retire his number? Never should have happened. (Same with Brian Winters).

Meanwhile two VERY deserving players, Dandridge and Marques, have not had the honor.

I am shocked that Pressley number was not retired...

Would that be Elvis or Harold Pressley?

Bah. I wasn't planning on going to this game, and now I want to go just because of the Lanier thing.

Had I known this I would have chosen nice tickets for this game rather than the Portland game the other day

Bucks_Revenge wrote:I am shocked that Pressley number was not retired...

If you guys are evaluating Lanier just by the "stats" you see 25-30 years later, that won't tell the whole story.....

Look at how few minutes (generally 26mpg) that Lanier got his "14/10" during his seasons with us.....

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... ebo01.html

There were plenty of nights where Lanier might only play 5 minutes, score 4 points against a doormat team like the Bulls and then come out of the game because we were blowing the other team out. Nellie had to save Lanier and keep him fresh because of his serious knee problems. So those games would bring Lanier's averages down.

But then he'd get 35mpg against Artis Gilmore in a big showdown and put up 24/15 to get us a big win.......

And that was the era of the big tough star centers.....the guys Lanier went up against every night were top notch. Jabbar, Parrish, Gilmore, Dawkins, Walton, Moses Malone, etc......

Lanier even in his last year was a better player than Bogut is right now.....hands down. He just was playing on guts though since his health problems were very serious......

Edit: For more proof of how Lanier was used, look at the career stats the year he split between Detroit and then here. In Detroit he was averaging 22/10....once traded here that season, those averages dropped to 15/7 because we just didn't need the guy to play that many minutes. The Bucks teams Lanier played for were powerhouses. And we had a top tier defensive backup center in the form of Harvey Catchings who could play defensively as good as Camby does today. So again, we didn't need Lanier to go 40mpg and put up 20/10.

My family moved to Milwaukee in 1989. Became a Bucks fan shortly thereafter (it was tough).

So imagine my frustration when I can't emotionally take part in these memories of the "good old days," with no sign of "good new days" on the horizon.

I agree that Laniers drop in production his first year or two here was mostly due to our team being so good back then. But I still don't feel he deserved to have his number retired over Marques, Bobby or Elvis.

The best way they could honor him would be to not play the game.

MickeyDavis wrote:Lanier was a great player but not with the Bucks. He was suppose to be the "missing" piece to a title. But it didn't happen.

Great guy in the locker room and community as well. But retire his number? Never should have happened. (Same with Brian Winters).

Meanwhile two VERY deserving players, Dandridge and Marques, have not had the honor.

Glad I'm not the only one to feel this way about Brian Winters.

I agree Lanier had his moments but to get your number retired you need to be very special for a lot of years. He wasn't that while with the Bucks.

I agree with Press - stats don't tell the whole story with Lanier. He wasn't the missing piece that got the Bucks a title but he was the missing piece that elevated them from being a good team into a legitimate contender year in and year out. He was essential in matching up with teams like Philly and Boston because he could still command attention in the post and deliver when needed. He definitely deserves to have his number retired in my opinion. There aren't many players in this team's history who made that type of significant impact in terms of completely changing a good team into a great one.

I was at his first game with the Bucks. Yes I'm old. I remember the excitement at the Mecca that day and how great it was to have Bob Lanier on this team and how exciting it was to see him transform this exciting young Bucks team into something more. It sure would be nice if the Bucks could make a move like that again that causes so much excitement and has such a profound impact on this team's fortunes.

I think we all agree the Brian Winters thing was a joke. Under those standards we've got to do Cassell since he did more for us than Brian.

But remember that both Brian and Junior came via the Jabbar trade. I'm guessing that played into things. A way to still justify that deal..."Hey two of the guys we got had their numbers retired"

In re: Lanier I agree with Europa who agrees with me. Lanier was a HOF center. He brought legitimacy to this team as a national power in the aftermath of the Jabbar trade.

Mega Bump to the Big-Man......

Nice ceremony tonight.....Congrats Big Bob!