DETROIT — Chaz Lanier’s career has required patience.
As a little-known recruit out of The Ensworth School in Tennessee with two Division I offers, Lanier spent three seasons primarily as a bench player for North Florida.
He watched a lot from the sidelines before finally breaking out as one of the best pure shooters in the country and spending his final season at Tennessee and being selected 37th overall in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Patience brought Lanier to the Detroit Pistons and it’s only a month into his rookie season that the 23-year-old guard is already proving he belongs.
“There’s a maturity to his game,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said Monday. “His teammates know he’s capable, so they find him. He’s got a grown-man game and plays at a grown-man pace, not like other rookies who kind of can get sped up. He’s really comfortable in his skin and comfortable in his game.”
Lanier is older than five of the Pistons’ last six draft picks — including players like Bobi Klintman and Jalen Duren whose draft rights were acquired by Detroit — and about three months younger than franchise star Cade Cunningham.
He didn’t enter the league as a major project, rather as a player ready to have a role and needing some professional minutes under his belt to secure that spot.
While Lanier isn’t lighting up the stat sheet every night, he’s growing more comfortable in some consistent minutes off the bench where he can step in and do what he does best — shoot.
“He’s got a fearless spirit when it comes to shooting the ball,” veteran guard Duncan Robinson said. “He’s got a ton of skill and ability. He’s in the right spots, he’s doing the right things, he’s staying aggressive, and he works at it. He’s clearly somebody that wants to be great.”
Beyond sporting a career 40% three-point shooting rate in college, Lanier has the green light because he knows how to get open.
The rookie reads defenses at a high level and is constantly moving himself to become an outlet for the Pistons’ paint-heavy offense.
While teammates are driving toward the rim and drawing defenders, he’s moving around the arc and creating space so he can be ready to take a three if there’s nothing in the paint.
Chaz Lanier reads the game so well. Always watching the ball and putting himself where he needs to be as an outlet.
He's rarely forcing shots. Super impressed by the rookie. pic.twitter.com/RxgR19Qe8J
— Jacob Richman (@JacobHRichman) November 19, 2025
On a team with an elite creator like Cade Cunningham, having shooters that pose an outside threat with space are key.
It’s led Lanier to finding himself categorized as wide open — at least six-plus feet from the nearest defender — on 29 of his 36 three-point attempts so far. He’s shooting 33.3% from three this season, but after a standout performance on Tuesday with a season-high nine points, he’s shooting nearly 38% from beyond the arc over his last three games.
For his efforts in helping to push the Pistons to their 11th straight win with a victory on the road against the Atlanta Hawks, he was awarded the team’s Pistons-themed belt, lovingly referred to as the BTA or “Belt to Ass.”
“It means a lot to have the belt. It is something that is respected and honored,” Lanier told The Detroit News after Wednesday’s game. “It was a hard-fought, gritty win coming here, coming off a back-to-back against a good team. We are feeling good, and we have a lot more to accomplish.”
Lanier is one of the players that has certainly benefitted from a string of injuries to the Pistons’ roster. He’s played 11-plus minutes in each of the last five games and played a career-high 27 minutes in an overtime win over the Washington Wizards last week.
Even as the Pistons regain key role players, Lanier seems to have earned the faith in the coaches to keep him on the court and his teammates to provide him opportunities early in his NBA career.
“He’s not going to do too much. He’s not going to be out there trying to ‘prove’ himself,” veteran Caris LeVert said of Lanier. “He’s just out there doing what he knows he does really well and he’s very confident in his abilities. He’s someone who’s worked his way up to this level, so you got a high level of respect for those type of guys.”
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