Larry O. Johnson (born November 28, 1954) is an American retired

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player who had a brief career in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

(NBA). He was a 6'3" shooting guard and played competitively at Kentucky's Union County High School and the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...

(UK) from 1973 to 1977. He was the first of three African-Americans from Union County recruited by UK.Larry Johnson enters Hall of Fame
by Brandon Cole, ''Union County Advocate'' website, posted June 6, 2007 Johnson was selected in the second round in the

1977 NBA draft The 1977 NBA draft was the 31st annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on June 10, 1977, before the 1977–78 season. In this draft, 22 NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players ...

by the

Buffalo Braves The Buffalo Braves were an American professional basketball franchise based in Buffalo, New York. The Braves competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division from 1970 ...

. He played only four games for them in 1977–78 season, averaging 1.5 points per contest. Johnson would go on to play internationally for many years. Most notably in Japan for Matsushita Denki, which later became known as the Panasonic Corporation, from 1979 to 1989 and eventually coached the team after he retired.

References

External links

NBA stats
@ basketballreference.com

@ bigbluehistory.net 1954 births Living people African-American basketball players American expatriate basketball people in Japan American men's basketball players Basketball players from Kentucky Buffalo Braves draft picks Buffalo Braves players Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball players People from Morganfield, Kentucky Shooting guards 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople {{1950s-US-basketball-bio-stub