Robert Allen McAdoo Jr. ( MAK-ə-doo; born September 25, 1951) is an American former professional basketball player and coach. 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 in four consecutive trips to the Finals in four years with the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers of 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.
The #2 pick of the 1972 NBA draft out of the University of North Carolina, McAdoo played center for the majority of his career, splitting the balance of his time between power and small forward. In a 21-year playing career, he spent his first 14 seasons in the NBA and 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 participated in basketball and track and played saxophone in the marching band.
As a senior, he led Ben L. Smith to the state basketball semifinals, and was the high jump state champion in track, where he set a new state record of 6 feet 7.75 inches, beating out future North Carolina Tarheel teammate and fellow Basketball Hall of Famer Bobby Jones.
Coming out of high school in 1969, McAdoo lacked the academic test scores required by the Division I schools, so he enrolled for two years at Vincennes University, then a junior college, in Vincennes, Indiana. He averaged 19.3 points and 10 rebounds as a freshman, leading Vincennes to the NJCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship in 1970 with 27 points in the title game. His roommate was teammate and fellow future NBA point guard Foots Walker. As a sophomore, he averaged 25.0 points and 11.0 rebounds, and was named a Junior College All-American in 1971.
McAdoo played for Team USA at the 1971 Pan American Games, in the summer 1971, averaging 11.0 points per game.
McAdoo enrolled at the University of North Carolina in the Fall of 1971, the only junior college player Dean Smith recruited in his career.
"We didn't really recruit him," Coach Dean Smith said. "His mother called us to start it. She said all the other schools were recruiting him. Why weren't we?"
Playing alongside Bobby Jones, McAdoo 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.
Following that success, McAdoo consulted with Coach Dean Smith, who encouraged him to leave college early for the NBA.
Citing family hardship, McAdoo sought and won early eligibility for the 1972 NBA draft under the "hardship" clause that existed until 1977.
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, and was selected as the number two overall pick by the Buffalo Braves.
It had been 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 had 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 selected as the No. 1 pick of the 1972 ABA draft.
After rumored contract talks between the number one draft pick-holding Portland Trail Blazers and McAdoo failed to come to fruition, Portland selected fellow center LaRue Martin, and Buffalo took the plunge on McAdoo with the number 2 pick. McAdoo signed, but quickly became 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."
In spite of this, he immediately became one of the NBA's premier players, winning the 1973 NBA Rookie of the Year Award and being named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team.
As a sophomore in 1973-74, McAdoo he exploded into the limelight, earning the first of three consecutive NBA scoring titles while leading the NBA in field goal percentage and shooting 54.7 percent. He also enjoyed his first of five All-Star selections, and led Buffalo to its first playoffs appearance, though they would lose in the first round to Dave Cowens and the eventual-champion Boston Celtics. McAdoo's 1973-74 performance remains the last time an NBA player has averaged both 30.0 points and 15.0 rebounds per game.
In 1974–75, he was awarded the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, averaging 34.5 points, 14.1 rebounds and 2.12 blocks per game, while shooting 51.2 percent from the field and 80.5 percent from the free throw line. He also led the league in fan voting for the 1975 All-Star Game with 98,325 votes. McAdoo is the youngest player to have had a 50-point/20-rebound game. That season, with McAdoo aided by strong play from Jim McMillian and Randy Smith, the Braves would finish with an improved 49–33 record, though again they would lose in the opening round of the playoffs, this time in seven games to Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld, and the Washington Bullets