Lafayette attended Capitol High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and led the basketball team to a 29–3 record his senior year. Lafayette attended first Blinn College and Brown Mackie College before transferring to the University of Houston.
At Houston during his junior year, Lafayette started 30 of 31 games and earned 2nd team all Conference United States of America while finishing third in scoring in C-United States of America with a 15.7 points per game average. During his senior year in 2006-2007, Lafayette averaged 14.3 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game. He also majored in sociology.
Lafayette played with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants during the 2009-2010 season in the National Basketball Association Development League.
With the Mad Ants, the guard started 42 of 48 games and averaged 17.1 points, 6.5 assists and 1.8 steals in 35.3 minutes per game. On April 14, 2010, Lafayette signed with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association and appeared in one game with the team in which he scored 7 points.
According to research by STATS Limited Liability Company, those 7 points are an National Basketball Association record for most points scored in a career of exactly one game played. Upon playing with the Celtics, Lafayette became the 23rd former Houston Cougar to play in the National Basketball Association. On October 13, 2010, Lafayette signed with Partizan Belgrade in Serbia, but the contract was terminated in November.
In December 2010, Lafayette practiced with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, his former team
He was going to sign with the Mad Ants once he was officially released from Partizan Belgrade. After averaging 16.4 points per game with the Mad Ants, he signed a four-month contract with the Turkish team Beşiktaş. But due to health problems, his contract was dropped.
In February 2011, Lafayette signed with Maccabi Ashdod in Israel.
On October 5, 2011 he signed a one-year contract with Asseco Prokom Gdynia in Poland. In January 2012, Lafayette signed with Anadolu Efes Istanbul for the remainder of the 2011-2012 season.
Later that year, he joined Žalgiris Kaunas. He signed with Valencia Basket in the offseason in 2013.
On June 22, 2014, he signed a two-year deal with Olympiacos Piraeus.
On June 29, 2015, he parted ways with Olympiacos. On July 9, 2015, he signed with the Italian club Emporio Armani Milano. The Croatian Basketball Federation asked for permission to give Oliver Lafayette a Croatian citizenship for sports interest, which the Croatian Olympic Committee approved.
Lafayette was awarded with a Croatian passport and represented Croatia at the 2014 International Basketball Federation Basketball World Cup.
