Laurence Michael Foust (June 24, 1928 – October 27, 1984)
Played for: Fort Wayne Pistons (1950–1957), Minneapolis Lakers (1957–1960),
St. Louis Hawks (1960–1962)
11,198 points (13.7 points per game), 8,041 rebounds (9.8 rebounds per game), 1,368 assists (1.7 assists per game)
8× NBA All-Star (1951–1956, 1958, 1959)
All-NBA First Team (1955)
All-NBA Second Team (1952)
Once upon a time, it really meant something to be an NBA All-Star. As of 2026, 67 players have been selected to the NBA All-Star Game eight times. Not counting the ones that are active legends (James, Curry, you get the idea), there is just one player with eight All-Star Game selections that isn't a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. His name is Larry Foust. Born in Painesville, Ohio but attending school in Philadelphia, Foust probably was destined to be a basketball mainstay with a height of 6'7 before he even graduated high school (as a senior he grew two inches). For South Catholic, the star center went to the City Championship for the Catholic League three straight years and helped win it all with a last-second play in his senior year. In college, he attended nearby La Salle College in 1946. With teammates such as Jim Phelan (a future coaching icon at Mount St. Mary's) and head coach Ken Loeffler, Foust was an All-City player four straight years that scored nearly 1,500 combined points and led La Salle to their first two National Invitational Tournaments in 1948 and 1950; he was named to the athletic hall of fame in 1962. Foust was drafted in 1950 by the Chicago Stags (the original NBA team in Chicago) as the 5th overall pick, but the franchise was on its way out and Foust found his way to joining the Fort Wayne Pistons. With players such as Fred Schaus (forward but also future pro coach) and head coach Murray Mendenhall, the Pistons went 32–36 and made the Division Semifinals while Foust averaged 13 points and 10 rebounds a game (one can do that with a frame of 270 pounds) while being part of one of the most dubious games in NBA history. On November 22, in an attempt to combat George Mikan and with no shot clock to deter it*, the Pistons engaged in "hold the ball as long as possible before the final basket was scored by Foust for a 19-18 victory over the Minneapolis Lakers. Foust made the inaugural All-Star team that year, which would have sportswriters choose players (none from their own city) that had ten players each from the Western and Eastern Division; Foust was one of three rookies (Paul Arizin and Bob Cousy) to make it.
In 1955, with three future members of the Hall of Fame in George Yardley, Andy Phillip, and Bob Houbregs, the Pistons made it all the way to their first NBA Finals, doing so as Division champions with a 43-29 record. Described by Slater Martin as one who would “knock you if you went into the lane", Foust was an All-Star for the fifth straight year and was named to the All-NBA First Team for the only time while shooting 48.7 percent from the field (owing to his dominant frame from up close described by Phelan as having "a very soft touch around the basket"), which actually was a season record for four years. They met the Syracuse Nationals in a series where home games were played in Indianapolis due to other commitments. In a series where he averaged 28 minutes per game, he was the leading scorer with 111 points (15.9 per game) and leading rebounder at 65 (9.3 per game) that also saw him go to the line the most (35/48 on free throws). He led the way in scoring in Game 1 (26) and Game 7 (24), but the Pistons blew halftime leads in both Game 6 and Game 7 (which included a go-ahead free throw in the latter with 12 seconds remaining). Foust averaged 16 points and nine rebounds on the 1955-56 squad that saw the Pistons make it back to the NBA Finals versus the Philadelphia Warriors; he averaged 19/13/1 in the subsequent five-game loss. In his final season for Fort Wayne, he played in just 61 games due to injury and averaged 12.4 points. He had four 1,000-point seasons for the Pistons (who had nine total seasons where a player scored 1,000 points combined) when he left. George Mikan, now a coach for Minneapolis, wanted him on his team and thus traded Walter Dukes to acquire Foust. He averaged 16.8 points per game (where he played all 72 games) and made his seventh All-Star team. The following year, with rookie Elgin Baylor on the squad, Foust made one more All-Star team and reached the Finals for the third time. Foust played nearly 30 minutes a game and averaged 12.5 points/15 rebounds as the Lakers were swept by the dynasty-era Boston Celtics.
In the 1959-60 season, he was traded to the St. Louis Hawks for three players. It was the last season he averaged 27 minutes a game. He played a bit less with stars such as Clyde Lovellette around, but the Hawks went all the way to the NBA Finals (dispatching the Lakers on the way), where Foust put up 5/5 before breaking his hand in Game 5 as the Hawks lost in 7. Foust played off the bench for the final two seasons of his career (17.8 in 1960-61 and 20.2 in 1961-62) and had one more Finals loss in 1961 before injuries to his leg and back (at one point in time, the NBA had teams play in five cities for five games in a week) saw him decide to retire in 1962 to become a salesman. He had four children with his wife and even became a youth counselor in his later years before dying of a heart attack at the age of 56 in 1984. Foust should have gone down as a bona-fide Hall of Famer. Instead, he became forgotten. He played 817 total games and when he retired, he was 9th in points* (of the top 14, he is the only one not in) and 4th in rebounds in all of NBA history despite retiring at 33. Of the seven players who averaged 10 points a game in ten seasons by 1962 (Foust did that for his first ten years), he is the only one not in the Hall. Hell, if you want to look at guys who averaged 10 points/10 rebounds a game by the time of 1962 (so a double-double), Foust was one of eight guys to do so for six seasons (nowadays there are 59 guys who have done that in the BAA/NBA/ABA era). And yet he isn't even a finalist for the Class of 2026. The Basketball Hall of Fame (a place that does not even bother to have a link to see who a finalist in past years was and is a general weird place) should be ashamed of themselves, but at least Foust has one place he can be appreciated.
On behalf of the Unsung Hall of Fame, it is my privilege to welcome Larry Foust into the Hall.
Notes
Photo credit: https://www.playmakerstats.com/player/larry-foust/575323
*In 1954, Daniel J. Biasone and Leo Ferris invented the 24-second shot clock. Somehow, Ferris is not a Hall of Famer.
He also was part of one of the stranger plane trips for a pro team: landing in a cornfield in Iowa: 1960 LAKERS WILL NEVER FORGET PLANE CRASH THAT CHANGED THEIR LIVES | New York Post
*While media outlets at the time said Foust was 10th, they forgot that George Mikan actually was below Foust in points because the NBA pretends that the NBL (where Mikan scored over 1,000 points) does not exist.
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