The 2024 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class got inducted on Sunday, and as such the Los Angeles Lakers paid tribute to Michael Cooper and Jerry West.
Cooper was one of the defensive anchors of the Showtime Lakers. He played 12 NBA seasons all with L.A. and was named to eight All-Defense Teams with five first-team selections and three second-team. He finished in the top five in Defensive Player of the Year voting five times, winning the award for the 1986-87 season. Cooper did this despite coming off the bench in 80 of the 82 regular season games.
In his 12 seasons with the Lakers, Cooper went to the NBA Finals eight times and won five championships. While he may not get the glory that Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy get, it’s long been known that the Showtime Lakers would not have been what they were without Cooper’s contributions.
West was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame for a third time, this time for the work he did as an executive. After his Hall of Fame playing career with the Lakers, West forged a career as one of the game’s all-time great executives. He made the transition in the 1979-80 season as a scout, where he helped to begin the Showtime dynasty that of course included Cooper.
After being named the general manager of the Lakers in 1982, Wesr proceeded to win six NBA championships in L.A. over the next 20 seasons. He helped bring all five Showtime titles and laid the foundation for the Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal dynasty, but he was only with the team for the first of their three titles before departing in 2000.
West also helped to usher in the Golden State Warriors dynasty of the 2010s and won Executive of the Year honors twice, once with the Lakers in 1995, the year before he signed O’Neal and drafted Bryant, and the other in 2004 with the Memphis Grizzlies.
Michael Cooper wished Jerry West was there for Hall of Fame ceremony
Unfortunately, Jerry West was not there for his third Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony after passing away in June. Michael Cooper recently expressed how much he wishes West, who was responsible for bringing a lot of the Showtime players to L.A. as an executive, could have been there to watch him get immortalized.
“That’s the thing that hurts. When I found out today I started crying because I was going to really relish that because we go back to 1973. That man has been in my life all these years.”
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