Greg Lee (basketball)

Gregory Scott Lee (December 12, 1951September 21, 2022) was an American professional basketball and volleyball player. He played college basketball for the UCLA Bruins, winning back-to-back national championships as their starting point guard in 1972 and 1973. He had short stints in the original American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) before playing four seasons in West Germany. As a volleyball player, Lee teamed with Jim Menges to set a record with 13 consecutive professional beach volleyball titles. He was inducted into the California Beach Volleyball Association's (CBVA) hall of fame.

Early life

Lee was born in the Reseda neighborhood of Los Angeles on December 12, 1951. His father, Marvin, played center for the UCLA Bruins under coach Wilbur Johns. Lee attended Reseda Charter High School, where he was an All-American and named Los Angeles City Section player of the year in basketball.

Basketball career

Lee played point guard at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1971 to 1974. When he arrived, freshmen were not allowed to compete on the varsity team. He played on the freshman team with Bill Walton and Keith Wilkes (later known as Jamaal Wilkes), and they went undefeated with a 20–0 record. In his sophomore year, Lee became a starter on the varsity squad. He and his classmates went on the 1971–72 Bruins squad and had a record of 30–0, winning its games by an average margin of over 30 points. Lee averaged 8.7 points per game, while Wilkes averaged 13.5 points and Walton 21.1. UCLA won the national title in 1972 over Florida State 81–76.

The following year, the Bruins again went 30–0, and again won the NCAA tournament with an 87–66 win over Memphis State. Lee's 14 assists in the game set an NCAA championship game record. He had started the season as a reserve after coach John Wooden replaced him in the starting lineup with Tommy Curtis. However, Curtis became ill with the London flu after 10 games. Lee re-established himself as the starter, and Curtis became a key reserve.

In Lee's senior year in 1973–74, Curtis became a starter again, and Andre McCarter's improved play also cut into Lee's playing time. The school's 88-game winning streak ended with a 71–70 loss to Notre Dame. The streak remains an NCAA men's basketball record. Later that season, UCLA's stretch of consecutive national titles was stopped at seven after North Carolina State defeated the Bruins 80–77 in double overtime in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. In his 2016 autobiography, Walton blamed Curtis for both the tournament loss as well as earlier defeats in the season, and lamented Lee's lack of playing time.

After his collegiate career ended, Lee was drafted by both the NBA and ABA. The Atlanta Hawks drafted him in the seventh round (115th pick overall) of the 1974 NBA draft and the San Diego Conquistadors drafted him in the fifth round of the ABA draft the same year. He chose the Conquistadors, averaging 3.6 points and 2.6 assists in five games. The next season, he moved to the NBA, joining Walton on the Portland Trail Blazers and averaging 1.2 points and 2.2 assists in five games.
At the urging of former UCLA player John Ecker, Lee then played in West Germany for four seasons with TuS 04 Leverkusen.

Beach volleyball career

Lee did not play volleyball for UCLA. However, his older brother Jon

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