Former Tennessee guard and Nashville native Chaz Lanier is officially heading to the NBA as a second-round draft pick.
Lanier was selected with the 37th overall pick, the seventh selection of the second round, by the Detroit Pistons during Thursday night’s coverage.
The 6-foot-4 guard will become teammates with VFL Tobias Harris, who is set to play his second of a two-year deal with Detroit this upcoming season.
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Lanier ended up going right in the range that mock drafts had him eyeing leading into the week, routinely tagged as a second-round pick in the No. 37-40 range.
Lanier, a product of Ensworth High School in Nashville, TN, spent his first four seasons at North Florida prior to transferring to Tennessee for his final super senior season. In his lone year on Rocky Top, Lanier dazzled the Vols’ fanbase with his perimeter shooting that harkened back to Dalton Knecht the previous season.
Lanier averaged 18.0 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.1 assists with 43.1% shooting in 38 games with the Vols and helped lead Tennessee to the Elite Eight in Indianapolis. He recorded 123 made three-pointers in those 38 games, which set Tennessee’s all-time single-season three-point record. He broke Chris Lofton’s 17-year record of 118 made three-pointers from the 2007-2008 season.
“Without question, NBA range, size, can make a pull-up in the lane,” one SEC anonymous coach recently said of Lanier, according to The Athletic’s CJ Moore and Brendan Marks. “The way they were running off screens was very reminiscent of how UConn and Detroit used Rip Hamilton all those years.”
Lanier, the 2024-2025 SEC Newcomer of the Year, was also selected as an AP First Team All-SEC player and Tennessee’s first Jerry West Award winner, given to the nation’s top shooting guard from that season.
Chaz Lanier is now the ninth NBA draft pick under Rick Barnes during his tenure at Tennessee, and continues a trend of five straight years of an NBA Draft pick for the Big Orange:
Tennessee Basketball Draft Picks Under Rick Barnes
- 2019 – Grant Williams – Boston Celtics // No. 22
- 2019 – Admiral Schofield – Washington Wizards via Philadelphia // No. 42
- 2019 – Jordan Bone – Detroit Pistons via New Orleans // No. 58
- 2021 – Keon Johnson – Los Angeles Clippers via New York // No. 21
- 2021 – Jaden Springer – Philadelphia 76ers // No. 28
- 2022 – Kennedy Chandler – Memphis Grizzlies via San Antonio // No. 38
- 2023 – Julian Phillips – Chicago Bulls via Boston // No. 35
- 2024 – Dalton Knecht – Los Angeles Lakers // No. 17
- 2025 – Chaz Lanier – Detroit Pistons // No. 37
Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for more coverage on Chaz Lanier’s second-round landing spot with the Pistons and all the ensuing reactions.
