The Year of the Coop

BY Peter Croatto

Michael Cooper is treating his Hall-of-Fame induction just like his Los Angeles Lakers glory days when he had to dismantle the NBA’s most potent offensive weapons.

He never took anything for granted back then, and Cooper isn’t about to take it easy now that he’s facing basketball immortality. While the induction ceremony is on October 13, his speech has been done since early September. Now, he’s watching game tape — speeches from prior inductees. On that day, his dome will be shaved. The suit will be immaculate. He’ll try not to cry…

And then, Cooper will run it back.

His enshrinement at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame precedes another dizzying honor in January when the Lakers will send Cooper’s No. 21 jersey to the rafters. He will share space with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O’Neal among others — giants of the game, exemplars of a franchise synonymous with greatness.

Cooper never made an NBA All-Star team, which he says is typically a requirement for the Lakers to send a jersey skyward. That the franchise is breaking the rules “might be the ultimate show of love,” he says. It’s not surprising. As Cooper likes to say, he left a lot of blood, sweat, and skin on the Great Western Forum floor.

“The Year of the Coop” has reduced one of the NBA’s most tenacious defenders to tears. But if Jeanie Buss had decided to make No. 21 available for a history-oblivious draft pick or if Springfield had never called, Cooper still would have been happy. He has already lived a life well beyond the limits of his childhood imagination.

Cooper didn’t consider himself a Hall-of-Fame player. His stats weren’t gaudy, but his impact on the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s was immense. Lockdown defender might not be a sexy role on a team that tried to entertain the entertainers. But it was essential.

“You don’t win championships without playing defense,” said Cooper, 68, who played in eight NBA Finals and won five titles with the Lakers.

In his 12 years donning the purple and gold, Cooper was the ace – forever a reliable character actor to the marquee names. He made eight NBA All-Defensive teams and received the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award for the 1986-87 season. During his playing days, Larry Bird called the rangy, spry, and skinny Cooper the best defender in the game. Magic Johnson, who played against Coop every day in practice for more than a decade, described him as “the greatest defensive player I’ve seen in the NBA.” 

Where Coop differed from fellow defensive-oriented Hall of Famers like Ben Wallace and Dennis Rodman was in his offensive ability. He had a reliable three-point shot, setting a then-Finals record with six three-pointers against the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the 1987 Finals. On the break, Cooper was a tempting target for Johnson’s lobs or “Coop-a-Loops.” He could play the point. And he did all of this (mostly) as a reserve, starting 94 of his 873 career games.

His zeal for defense came from necessity. Cooper, who missed most of his rookie season, came to a grim realization at 1979’s training camp: he had no place in the Lakers’ offense. There was Abdul-Jabbar and his cloud-scraping sky-hook.  Jamaal Wilkes had his funky, accurate jump shot. Norm Nixon was an emerging star. Magic, another playmaker, was hailed as a savior for the team — and for a league desperate for star appeal. Cooper had to embrace defense if he wanted to stick around. 

He grew to enjoy it. Sure, Magic’s no-look passes ignited the crowd and Kareem’s signature move deflated the opposition, but defense could be his calling card. He could help his team win by affecting another player’s game. Look at Game 3 of the 1987 Western Conference Finals. Forty-two seconds left, Seattle SuperSonics down three. Cooper is on Dale Ellis, Seattle’s young scoring machine. Everyone knows the ball is going to Ellis. He zig-zags for a sliver of space, with Cooper on him like an impossible-to-scratch itch. He finds a safe haven near the right baseline behind the massive Maurice Lucas, who sets a screen. But Cooper, recovering from a Tom Chambers screen on the left low post, isn’t done. He races toward Ellis, jumps forward, angles that thin body — perfect for squeezing through picks — and gets his fingertips on the ball, which falls harmlessly to the floor.

Pat Riley told Coop it was the best defensive play he had ever seen.

Nothing came easy. When he was 2 years old, Cooper cut his knee on a coffee can, leading to 100 stitches and eight years in a metal brace. The inspirational narrative took a while to unfold. He was a third-round draft pick out of the University of New Mexico, playing alongside Marvin Johnson, who was viewed as the star with an NBA future and picked one round earlier than Cooper. When Jerry West, then the Lakers head coach, was invited to a game by Lobos head coach Norm Ellenberger, Cooper saw an opportunity. He played great against Wyoming, finishing with 18 points (with some slams) and four assists. He was also a pest on defense, recording four steals.

“Coop,” Ellenberger told his co-captain a few days later, “West really likes you.”

For the first time, Cooper, a senior, realized he had a chance to make the NBA. Growing up in Pasadena, California — with his father not around, his grandmother running the house while his mom worked non-stop — basketball was a way to go to college. The NBA was not a career option. Cooper didn’t feel like he belonged in the league until 1982, four years after he was drafted. By that time, he’d earned two All-Defensive team selections. Marvin Johnson never played in the NBA.

You will not hear any “my-time-was-better” rhetoric from Coop. He loves basketball without reservation. He has coached for years, which has allowed him to use his best asset: his mind.

Cooper wanted to share the knowledge that coaches had given him. People have listened. He led the Los Angeles Sparks to back-to-back WNBA championships in 2001 and 2002. He has coached at just about every level. Cooper, who spent the summer coaching 3’s Company with the BIG3, is also an assistant at Division II Cal State LA.

Yes, he tries to sell young players on defense. Yes, he knows offense is sexy and leads to big contracts. But who better to extoll the benefits of steady play and excelling at the unglamorous than Coop?

“I tell kids this all the time, ‘I don’t care how good you are coming out of a college – any NBA team you go to is going to have three people there already doing what you think you’re good at,’” Cooper explained. “The best way you can fit in as a rookie: Be a good passer. Don’t turn the ball over. Be a solid defensive player. That enables you to stick on a team.”

With the upcoming honors, Cooper has become reflective. Yes, Showtime was glorious. The Lakers, where he serves as an ambassador, are like a family. But he has thought about his childhood frequently. There were nuggets of wisdom family members shared. An uncle advised Cooper to put God first, while his grandmother’s counsel has achieved an unimaginable poignancy: “Michael, keep on living. You’re going to get the chance to experience some good and great things.”

SHARE