On April 1st, around 9:15 am, Michael Cooper’s phone rang with the news that he was finally elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
He sat next to his wife, Yvonne, both listening. Yet as he heard the words being spoken about one of the highest honors in basketball, Cooper had his doubts.
His former Lakers teammate Magic Johnson lobbied for years to get Cooper into the Hall of Fame and it never happened. When he first heard the news, Cooper thought why should he believe it is true this time?
“First of all, I got the call on April Fool’s Day, April 1st, and I thought it was a joke at first,” Cooper said, laughing. “I was sitting next to my wife and I had the call on speaker and I was like, ‘Right. OK. This is a cruel April Fool’s joke.’ They said, ‘No, Coop, you’re in.’ I looked a little bit and my wife said, ‘Baby, they said you came in.’ So, yeah, I didn’t really expect it because the time they called before I got in. I was thrilled. I got up and yelled, ‘I’m in the Hall of Fame!'”
Cooper, 68, said he was convinced this time because he spoke with Jerry Colangelo, the president of the Hall of Fame.
“I heard Mr. Colangelo’s voice so I knew it was real because the other times they called me, he was never on the line,” Cooper said. “Every time someone else said, ‘Hey, Coop, listen, the consideration has come in. You were really close, but not this year.’ But now, I’m in the Hall of Fame!”
Cooper spent all 12 years of his NBA career with the Lakers, defense being his calling card on the showtime lakers, using his gifts to help them win five NBA championships during the 1980s with Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Byron Scott and coach Pat Riley.
Cooper was an eight-time NBA all-defensive player, five-time first team. He was the defensive player of the year in 1987.
“I kept telling everybody, writing, telling everybody that you can’t judge the impact on just statistics and numbers,” Johnson said. “Coop, he really wasn’t a sixth man, really. He played the minutes of starters. He always finished the games. He played the best of the best. They all said he was the best to watch over them. And then I said, who else has won defensive player of the year coming off the bench? The same year he hit six threes in the NBA championship and broke the record at that time.
“I tell people this: It’s when you act in the biggest moments. His value to us was Hall of Fame worthy. His value to the league – because now guys want to be defensive guys because of Coop. So, once he set himself up on the offensive end, what he did – point guard, back me up; he could play three positions, so, he was the first three-and-D [player]. He mastered that. And, so, that’s why I kept pushing, kept tweeting, kept sending letters. I’m just happy that everything turned out great, because if anyone deserves to be a Hall of Famer and a Hall of Famer, it’s Michael Cooper.”
This special moment for Cooper came 34 years after playing in his final NBA game with the Lakers, and he will be celebrated during the ceremony Sunday in Springfield, Mass., with the likes of Vince Carter, Walter Davis and Chauncey Billups.
However, the one person with whom Cooper is most happy to enter the Hall of Fame is Jerry West, who died in june West, who enters the Hall this time as a contributor after entering as a player and member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, selected Cooper from New Mexico in the third round of the 1978 draft with the 60th overall pick.
For Cooper, who attended Pasadena High and Pasadena City College, it meant the world to him to have West show such faith in a lanky 6-foot-5, 170-pound player.
“Jerry came to New Mexico to see us play once, but he came to see Marvin Johnson,” recalled Cooper, an assistant coach at Cal State LA. “I think he came to really evaluate him and I think he looked at him, he saw me. So, when the draft came, I really believe that if Chicago hadn’t drafted Marvin, the Lakers would have taken Marvin and I probably would end up somewhere else. But Chicago drafted Marvin in the second round and then in the third round I was there. That comes back to show how diligent Jerry was as far as his scouting and his watching of players. I guess he liked my length, I was defensive minded, and I’m glad things worked out that way.”
Cooper averaged 8.9 points, 4.2 assists and 1.2 steals during his career.
It was his defense that stood out, his willingness to face the best offensive players and never retreat from an opponent.
“He was as competitive as [Michael] Jordan, Kobe [Bryant]Magic, anybody who’s ever played this game,” said former teammate Mychal Thompson. “He had that kind of fire and competitiveness and determination to win. He wasn’t going to back down from anybody. He might have been ‘120 pounds,’ but he wasn’t going to let anybody intimidate him or bring him back. He was as tough of a player that ever played this game. He dominated the game on the defensive end.”
When asked who were his toughest five for him to guard, Cooper quickly named Larry Bird, George Gervin, Andrew Toney, Jordan and Julius Erving.
“Of course Magic and Kareem, they were who they were, great leaders, but Cooper was like the glue, like the heartbeat of our team, man,” Worthy said. “He was brutally honest, emotional and whatever he had in that body, he would give it 150% every night and every practice.
“Larry Bird doesn’t give too many compliments, but he said Cooper was the toughest guy to defend him and he meant it. And, so, I’m delighted and ecstatic that he’s going on the defense. I think that says a lot about who he is, what his career means and what the game is about. It’s about defense.”
For all Lakers, the defining moment for them was finally beating the hated Boston Celtics in the 1985 NBA Finals. The Lakers have lost to the Celtics in the Finals eight consecutive times.
But they broke through and Cooper played a big part in that.
“If we don’t have Coop, we don’t win those series,” Byron Scott said.
“Having a guy like Coop who could come in and guard Larry and just specifically say, ‘I’m going to give 100% of my effort on this part of the floor. Don’t even worry about the offensive end.’ But it just freed up some other things. I think Larry said that so many times over the years that Coop was the best defensive player he ever played. And if we don’t have Michael Cooper on that team, we don’t win those series. That’s how important he was to what we did on the defensive end because he made Larry work his ass off to score and that helped us on the other end as well. So if we don’t have Coop, we don’t win those series.”
“I think winning in 1985 was probably our greatest moment,” Cooper said. “Obviously the first championship [in 1980] was one of them, but we finally beat the Boston Celtics and with the Lakers organization could never do that, we were able to exterminate many ghosts of the past and it took a weight off Jerry’s shoulders because we did. something he couldn’t do. So, it was like a win for the city, for our organization and it kind of changed basketball, and I was just happy to be a part of that series. The Celtics were a team you had to beat, Larry Bird was a guy who had to be stopped to beat them and I was right there in the mix.”
And now that he’s a member of the Hall of Fame, Cooper will have his No. 21 jersey retired on Jan. 13 at Crypto.com Arena.
All of this is so overwhelming for Cooper. He never even imagined playing in the NBA while growing up in Pasadena.
“The NBA was far away for me. I never thought that in high school I would play professionally,” he said.
“So when I got the opportunity to play for the Lakers, it was just about staying. I didn’t want to be one and done, or two and done. I wanted to be around for a while. I was very fortunate to be able to do that. I played 12 years with the Lakers and just played the game for the love of the game. So for this Hall of Fame to be bestowed upon me, I was blessed.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
