The Los Angeles Lakers honored one of the core members of the ‘Showtime’ era as Michael Cooper saw his No. 21 jersey be placed in the rafters alongside many other franchise legends on Monday night. This honor came just a couple of months after Cooper was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Cooper was the Lakers’ defensive stopper during that time, making eight NBA All-Defensive teams and winning NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 1987 while helping the team to five NBA Championships in the 1980s. Obviously making the Hall of Fame is special, but Cooper feels that seeing his jersey in the rafters of Crypto.com Arena means more to him.
“Because it’s Lakers. This is hometown,” Cooper said before the Lakers’ game against the San Antonio Spurs in which his jersey was retired at halftime. “The Hall of Fame is something unique in itself and, again, it’s a big cast of characters there. But this event here is about the people that you played with, you went to work with, you fought with, you prepared with and you have love for. And I mean, I have love for all the people in the Hall of Fame, but this is a certain kind of love. And again, this one came out of nowhere.
“The Hall of Fame, I had been hearing a little bit if I got on the ballot, that that may happen. And, eventually, you get on so I knew there was a good possibility somewhere down the road that I would make that. But this one here, for some of the criteria that’s set as far as being an All-Star at least once or twice and other things. And then for this to happen, and me never accomplished being an All-Star or top 10-15 scorer, this one is really, really special because it’s about the people that loved us, enjoyed us and cheered for us.”
As Cooper noted, the Lakers have a very high standard in the players whose jersey they choose to retire. Unlike other franchises, only Hall of Famers receive that honor so players such as Derek Fisher, Robert Horry, Kurt Rambis and, until Monday night, Cooper, hadn’t seen their jerseys in the rafters. Cooper averaged under 10 points for his career so it was fair for him to wonder if this would ever happen.
But he is deserving of this accolade and it is great to see a player who was so important to the success of arguably the best era of Lakers basketball, be honored in this way.
Lakers ruin Michael Cooper jersey ceremony in blowout loss to Spurs
Unfortunately, the current Lakers were unable to properly honor Michael Cooper with a victory. The Lakers followed Cooper’s halftime jersey ceremony with an abysmal second half effort and fell to the Spurs, 126-102.
The Lakers led by 10 late in the third, but it all went downhill from there as turnovers and defensive breakdowns doomed them and the Spurs never let up as the Lakers lost their third straight game, all to Texas teams.
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