On April 1, around 9:15 a.m., Michael Cooper’s phone rang with the news that he finally had been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
He was sitting next to his wife, Yvonne, both of them listening. Yet as he heard the words being delivered about one of the highest honors in basketball, Cooper had his doubts.
His former Lakers teammate Magic Johnson had been lobbying for years to get Cooper into the Hall of Fame and it had never happened. When he first heard the news, Cooper thought why should he believe it was 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 speakerphone and I was like, ‘Right. OK. This is a cruel April Fool’s joke.’ They said, ‘No, Coop, you got in.’ I was kind of staring and my wife said, ‘Babe, they said you got in.’ So, yeah, I didn’t really expect it because the time they called before I didn’t get in. But they said I was in. I was elated. I got up and started yelling, ‘I’m in the Hall of Fame!’”
Cooper, 68, said he was convinced this time because he spoke with Jerry Colangelo, the chairman of the Hall of Fame.
“I heard Mr. Colangelo’s voice so I knew it was real because the other times they had called me he was never on the line,” Cooper said. “It was always somebody else saying, ‘Hey, Coop, listen, the consideration went in. You were real 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 times 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 stats and numbers,” Johnson said. “Coop, he wasn’t really a sixth man, really. He played starters’ minutes. He was always finishing the games. He played the best of the best. They all said he was the best who guarded 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 perform 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 established himself on the offensive end, which he did — point guard, backing 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 anybody deserves to be Hall of Fame-worthy 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.
Yet the one person Cooper is most happy to be entering the Hall of Fame with is Jerry West, who died in June. West, who enters the Hall this time as a contributor after entering as a player and a member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, selected Cooper out of 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 that kind of faith in a slender 6-foot-5, 170-pound player.
“Jerry came down to New Mexico to see us play one time, but he came down to see Marvin Johnson,” Cooper, an assistant coach at Cal State L.A., recalled. “I think he came down to kind of really assess him and I think in the process of looking at him he saw me. So, when the draft came, I really believe had Chicago not drafted Marvin, the Lakers would have taken Marvin and I probably would have ended up somewhere else. But Chicago drafted Marvin in the second round and then in the third round I was there. That goes back to show how diligent Jerry was as far as his scouting and his viewing of players. I guess he liked my length, I was defensive-minded, and I’m glad things worked out the way they did.”
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 take on the best offensive players and to never back down from an opponent.
“He was as competitive as [Michael] Jordan, Kobe [Bryant], Magic, anybody who has ever played this game,” former teammate Mychal Thompson said. “He had that same kind of fire and competitiveness and determination to win. He was not going to back down from anyone. He might have been ‘120 pounds,’ but…
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