William J. Laimbeer Jr. (born May 19, 1957) is an American former professional basketball coach and player who spent the majority of his career with the Detroit Pistons. Known for his physical style of play, he played a big part in the Pistons earning the nickname the “Bad Boys" in the mid-1980s before helping them win back-to-back NBA championships.
In his National Basketball Association (NBA) career, Laimbeer was known for his 11-year tenure with the Detroit Pistons during their "Bad Boys" era. Although a solid shooter and rebounder, Laimbeer became notorious for his physical play and reputation for delivering hard, often flagrant fouls. Laimbeer played at center with Hall of Fame backcourt guards Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars and forward Dennis Rodman, winning back-to-back NBA Championships in 1989 and 1990 with the Pistons, and being named an NBA All-Star four times. Prior to the NBA, he played for the University of Notre Dame and Palos Verdes High School in Southern California.
After his playing career, Laimbeer served as the head coach and general manager of the Detroit Shock in the WNBA from 2002 to 2009, coaching the team to three league championships in 2003, 2006, and 2008. He was the head coach of the New York Liberty from 2013 to 2017 and the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces from 2018 until 2021. He has twice been named the WNBA's Coach of the Year.
William J. Laimbeer Jr. was born on May 19, 1957, in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in the Chicago suburb of Clarendon Hills. He moved with his family to Palos Verdes Estates, California, where he attended Palos Verdes High School. His father, William Laimbeer Sr., was an Owens-Illinois executive who rose to the rank of company president. The younger Laimbeer once famously joked, "I'm the only player in the NBA who makes less money than his father."
Laimbeer played a Sleestak on the children's TV series Land of the Lost when the show solicited the Palos Verdes High School basketball team for tall people to play the character.
As a senior in high school in 1975, Laimbeer led Palos Verdes to a CIF basketball title and a stunning upset over 6-time defending champion Verbum Dei.
Laimbeer played college basketball for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. He was declared scholastically ineligible midway through his freshman season in January 1976. To regain his eligibility, Laimbeer spent two semesters at Owens Technical College in Toledo, Ohio, and returned to Notre Dame for the 1977–78 season. For his last two years of college, he averaged 7.3 points and 6.0 rebounds per game while playing 20 minutes a game, primarily as a substitute behind starting center Bruce Flowers. Notre Dame appeared in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament in 1978, and the Elite Eight in 1975.
Laimbeer was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1979, but the team's hesitation in signing him led him to spend his first professional season playing for Pinti Inox Brescia in Italy, where he averaged 21.1 points and 12.5 rebounds.
Cleveland Cavaliers (1980–1982)
Laimbeer returned to play for the Cavaliers in 1980. He was a reserve for the entire 1980–81 season, playing in 81 of 82 games without a start. He continued to have trouble breaking into the starting lineup his sophomore year, starting only 4 games in 50 appearances for the 1981–82 team.
On February 16, 1982, Laimbeer was traded to the Detroit Pistons, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was immediately installed as the Pistons starting center. During his playing career, Laimbeer was one of the most notorious players in the NBA. While highly popular among Piston fans, Laimbeer was despised by opposing players and fans for his disdain of his opponents, his poor sportsmanship, and his dangerous play, such as repeatedly committing violent intentional fouls. In the public eye, Laimbeer's reputation for physical play tended to overshadow his skills. His former teammate Dennis Rodman noted this in his book Bad As I Wanna Be, saying, "He [Laimbeer] was more than a thug, but that's what he'll be remembered for." In an interview for the 1990 NBA Home Video release "Pure Pistons," teammate Isiah Thomas also talked about Laimbeer's effect on opposing players, saying, "He frustrates people," but then added, "He frustrates people...because he's good."
In the ESPN 30 for 30 film Bad Boys, Laimbeer said his approach to the game was all psychological. When the Pistons would take to the court before a game, Laimbeer made it a point to lead the rest of the team out from the locker room and he always did so with a scowl on his face to show he was not intimidated by anyone.
While a serviceable and solid player for most of his career, Laimbeer knew there were better skilled players than him. However, there were not as many players who were as physical on the court as he was, and Laimbeer was able to use that to his advantage. The hard-nosed approach he used was designed to wear on opposing players to the point where they began focusing more on retaliating against him and the rest of the Pistons instead of trying to win the game; Laimbeer said if he was able to do that to an opponent during the course of a game, he had broken him down. He even said the local media would play a role as his and the team's reputation preceded them: "When the Pistons came into a town, all the media would write about were the 'Bad Boys' and how rough we played. They'd be asking players if they were going to stand up to us. And once we got teams thinking like that, we had them. We already got them out of their game."
Laimbeer was one of the top outside-shooting centers of his era, draining over 200 three-pointers for his career, and excelled at running the pick and pop with guards Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars. Then-head coach Chuck Daly used Laimbeer's inside-outside skills to great effect. On the defensive end, Laimbeer was one of the best rebounders in the game. On the offensive end, Daly would often have Laimbeer fade to the perimeter rather than roll to the basket, which had the additional effect of keeping the opposing team's best rebounder far from the backboard.
Laimbeer was selected to the NBA All-Star Game on four occasions (1983, 1984, 1985 and 1987) and finished among the league leaders in rebounding and free throw percentage several times. He won the NBA rebound title in the 1985–86 season. He made a career-high 53.0% of his field goal attempts in the 1983–84 season, and the following season he posted a career-high 17.5 points per game. Laimbeer started on the Pistons' 1989 and 1990 NBA championship teams.
Laimbeer spent 14 seasons in the NBA, mostly with the Detroit Pistons. Laimbeer became the 19th player in league history to amass more than 10,000 points and 10,000 rebounds. Laimbeer was most effective off the defensive glass – from 1982 to 1990 no player in the league totaled more defensive rebounds. He was also remarkably durable, never playing fewer than 79 regular-season games during his first 13 seasons, and playing all 82 games seven times. His streak of 685 consecutive games played (which ended due to suspension in the 1988–89 season) is the fifth longest in league history. Laimbeer retired early in the 1993–94 season at age 36 after an incident in practice with longtime friend Isiah Thomas that led to Thomas breaking his hand. Laimbeer, upset over the fight as well as worried over the reaction of Pistons fans for injuring their team captain, decided to retire, believing the fight with Isiah was his "downfall". He announced his retirement after a meeting with Thomas and head coach Don Chaney that ended with him and Thomas teary-eyed and remaining best friends. Laimbeer had his jersey number (40) retired by the Pistons in February 1995. He remains the franchise's all-time leader in career rebounds.
Laimbeer endorsed a video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball, a futuristic basketball game in which physical play is encouraged. In a cameo in the ninth season of Cheers, Kevin McHale of the rival Celtics remarked, when presented with the X-Ray of an adult male gorilla's ankle, "...could be Laimbeer."