In this ongoing series, we will take a trip to yesteryear to highlight some Los Angeles Lakers players whom some fans may have forgotten. These players didn’t get the billing that some others enjoyed, but they were very instrumental to the Lakers’ success.
Just about every true Lakers fan knows who Michael Cooper was and some of the value he provided to the team throughout the 1980s. However, some may not know the great obstacles he had to overcome to become one of its most important role players of the Showtime era.
Buy Lakers TicketsA look at his bio reveals a true study of toughness and perseverance.
Cooper had to scratch and claw, but he never gave in
Cooper was a local product, as he grew up in Pasadena just minutes northeast of downtown Los Angeles. However, unlike plenty of pro athletes, he didn’t exactly seem destined for sports greatness as a youngster.
His parents got divorced when he was an infant, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother in a very busy and hectic household. He loved playing sports as a youngster, especially football and basketball, but he was cursed with the build of a popsicle stick. He would eat and eat and eat in an attempt to put some bulk on his frail-looking bod, but to no avail.
Even worse, as a toddler, he severely cut one of his knees, resulting in a wound that required about 100 stitches to close. A doctor told his family he would never be able to walk, and he would have to wear a heavy knee brace for some time.
Not only did Cooper prove that doctor wrong by being able to walk normally, but he also became a star basketball player at Pasadena High School. There, he was encouraged by his head coach to focus on defense, and he became obsessed with shutting down opponents.
Because he was a mediocre student, he spent some time at Pasadena City Community College, then he transferred to the University of New Mexico. After two seasons there, the Lakers took him in the third round of the 1978 NBA Draft.
Cooper had already greatly overcome the odds. But now the challenge was to make it in the pros. He played in just three games and totaled seven minutes as a rookie due to a knee injury, and when the 1979-80 season began, new head coach Jack McKinney and assistant Paul Westhead had a decision to make for the final roster cut: Cooper or guard Ron Carter.
Even though Cooper was 6-foot-7 but only about 175 pounds, McKinney went with him for the last roster spot. Little did the Lakers know they had just made one of the best decisions they would make over the next decade.
Cooper was an indispensable part of the Showtime Lakers
As a rookie, Cooper was offensively limited, but he got after it on the defensive end. On offense, rookie Magic Johnson found a way to get him involved. Cooper would cut to the hoop off a back pick, Johnson would throw a high lob pass and Cooper would jam it. It was an alley-oop pass, but the Lakers called the play a “Coop-a-loop.”
The team went all the way to the NBA Finals, and with Johnson picking up the slack for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Game 6 by putting up 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists, it won the world championship. But Cooper also proved he was more than just a warm body off the bench by moving into the starting lineup for that contest and contributing 16 points, six assists and two steals.
As the years went on, Cooper would become something of a Swiss Army knife for the Lakers, but if anyone thought he was merely a jack-of-all-trades, he was a master of one: defense. Starting in the 1980-81 season, he would be named to either the All-Defensive First or Second Team eight consecutive times, and he would win the 1986-87 Defensive Player of the Year award. Pat Riley, who became the Lakers’ head coach early in the 1981-82 campaign, would put him on just about every star, ranging from Julius Erving to the 6-foot-1 Isiah Thomas.
Cooper would also guard Boston Celtics superstar Larry Bird, especially when L.A. faced him three times in the NBA Finals at mid-decade. Bird was a few inches taller and at least 20 pounds heavier, but Cooper gave no quarter. He was as mentally tough and tenacious as it came, and he gave Bird more hell than anyone else. No one had ever taught him the words “quit” or “relent.” He was also obsessively committed to his craft, constantly studying videotapes of Bird to find a crack, any crack, in his green and white armor.
The 1979-80 season was the NBA’s first with the 3-point shot, and as the decade wore on, teams started to occasionally utilize it, first sheepishly, and later with more gusto. As the 3-pointer started to cause the league to evolve, Cooper made himself into one of the game’s best in that department.
He was also one of the more versatile players on L.A.’s roster. If LeBron James helped usher in the era of positionless basketball, those Showtime Lakers planted the seeds. While Johnson could play all five positions, Cooper could play both guard spots as well as small forward. There were times when he was the team’s designated backup point guard, and at other times, he was more of a wing.
Cooper played on all five of the Lakers’ world championship teams in the 1980s, and with his game and body in decline, he retired following the 1989-90 season. He would go on to become an assistant coach for them, and later he was named the head coach of the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, who he guided to back-to-back league titles in 2001 and 2002.
After several other coaching gigs, he made his way back to the Southland to take the helm of Culver City High School’s basketball team starting in the fall of 2021.
Cooper’s successful second career as a head coach has led to him getting consideration for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Even if he never gets in, history will show that those Showtime Lakers wouldn’t have been nearly as successful had it not been for him.
