Speaker 1: Mm hmmm mmm.
Speaker 2: Welcome back all the smoke twenty twenty five here presented
Speaker 2: to you by DraftKings.
Speaker 1: The crown is yours. They got to put that on that.
Speaker 1: When you get that new money, Jack.
Speaker 2: Your ship was look good right now. If you had
Speaker 2: a crowd, you got your easy out right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just you know, off real quick. Yeah, I sure can't.
Speaker 2: No Jerry Croll, no no products in there.
Speaker 1: It look wetter? Is it dry? When Coop you never
Speaker 1: had one of those? You kept this hit? I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, y'all. I didn't think my house was like this,
Speaker 1: but yeah, black people.
Speaker 2: Got good at too many Coop, Jerry curl Bo. I've
Speaker 2: had hair Coop. Coop kept this year. Hey man, we
Speaker 2: work man. It's and I got bounced because they I
Speaker 2: got bounced. It's been a long time coming. I don't
Speaker 2: think it gets more la than than than the gentleman
Speaker 2: we have here today. Twelve year pro, eight time All Defense,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven Defensive Player of the Year. That's five
Speaker 2: time NBA champ, eight, two time w NBA champions ahead coach,
Speaker 2: one of the first OG's of three and d We're
Speaker 2: gonna get into that today. Congratulations to the newest member
Speaker 2: of the twenty twenty four Hall of Fame class. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the show Man, Michael Cooper.
Speaker 1: Coop. We appreciate it, guys, We appreciate you. Matt. Let
Speaker 1: me say something before we just started.
Speaker 3: Oh, sure, a lot of things that you want to
Speaker 3: do in your life, but I have fucking arrived.
Speaker 1: Yeah you're here. I'm here man.
Speaker 2: Yeah cool, so good, damn Coop. And we've been trying
Speaker 2: to get you for a minute, Coop, even dodging us.
Speaker 4: Yes, sir, I'm I'm I've always reminded you, not on
Speaker 4: for the basketball. You played with the defensive side of
Speaker 4: me and Matter, two guys that really loved and took.
Speaker 1: Pride to playing defense.
Speaker 4: And you were one of the first ones of when
Speaker 4: I first started watching basketball to see take pride in
Speaker 4: it and to be at eight time eight time like that,
Speaker 4: that's a lie to me. But what made what made
Speaker 4: you take pride and what made you just want to
Speaker 4: be a defender? Well, Jack, you know that was my
Speaker 4: sticking point when I got to the Lakers. Obviously growing
Speaker 4: up here in California, Pasadena, what people don't know is
Speaker 4: that I was an offensive juggernaut when I went to
Speaker 4: junior college, I averaged twenty six points a game at
Speaker 4: Pasadena City College. I went to New Mexico, and I
Speaker 4: think I got changed right there. My coaching, Norm Ellenberger,
Speaker 4: was a defensive binded coach. I finally get drafted by
Speaker 4: the Lakers, and Jerry West came up to me, the
Speaker 4: Lake great Jerry West. He said, cool, we got magic Kareem,
Speaker 4: Jamal Willis, Norman Nixon, ain't enough.
Speaker 3: Shots for you. So you have to play some defense.
Speaker 3: And that was my strongholding. I stuck to it, and
Speaker 3: that was how I was gonna stay there, to get.
Speaker 4: In the court, To get on the court. You know,
Speaker 4: Greg bob Brich told me that when I first got
Speaker 4: to San Antonio. He's like, you see all the stars got.
Speaker 4: If you want to get on in the court, you
Speaker 4: better play defense. Larry Bird, one of the best basketball
Speaker 4: players of all time, talked about you as being one
Speaker 4: of the best defenders ever.
Speaker 1: You was, how do you feel hearing it from a
Speaker 1: guy like Larry Bird? You know what.
Speaker 3: One of the things that we all know this playing
Speaker 3: against your peers, you always want to be respected, and
Speaker 3: he was one of the best. I never tried to
Speaker 3: hurt him or anything like that. Like, you know, Detroit
Speaker 3: had the Jordan rules and Philadelphia and I just tried
Speaker 3: to play Larry head up and just playing as honest
Speaker 3: as I could, because the great ones, You're not gonna
Speaker 3: affect him with that bullshit to come, you know, pulling
Speaker 3: his shirts, talking shit to him. But you couldn't talk
Speaker 3: to Larry because he didn't ignored you. But to hear
Speaker 3: him say that shows me that the things that I
Speaker 3: was doing on the court was the right way to
Speaker 3: do it. And again, just being respected by your peers
Speaker 3: is always nice. Take me into preparing for or being
Speaker 3: one of the best defenders ever. Take me into preparing
Speaker 3: for Gardeners or Star like larr Berry, Like what do
Speaker 3: you do, Like how do you prepare for a game?
Speaker 3: Because like I don't know if they had skying reports
Speaker 3: like they did back then, because we had sky reports.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have sky reports as well scouting reports.
Speaker 1: But again it was a lot of video.
Speaker 3: You know, you just beta and VHS, so it was
Speaker 3: just a lot of video watching of him, like watch
Speaker 3: all his games back then. A lot of our games
Speaker 3: was on tape delay, so we had a chance to
Speaker 3: play and then after the game. I'll come home and
Speaker 3: watch our game and then watch it. So preparing for
Speaker 3: the great ones, though, it's gonna always be hard because
Speaker 3: it's not about anybody in the NBA and the basketball
Speaker 3: in general can get a shot off. And I think
Speaker 3: as a defensive minded person and Jack you probably a
Speaker 3: tested this a little bit. All you want to do
Speaker 3: is affect their shot.
Speaker 1: Alter it. Mayke can shoot a little bit higher.
Speaker 3: But the one thing that I've always recognized about great
Speaker 3: offensive players is their spots on the court that they
Speaker 3: shoot the ball well from. And George Gervland told me,
Speaker 3: they said, cool, listen, if I get to my spot,
Speaker 3: ain't shoot you for do with me? So and thinking
Speaker 3: like that, my job was just to keep them off
Speaker 3: that spot. And Larry that's what I tried to do
Speaker 3: with him. But you know, people ask me all the
Speaker 3: time who's the hardest player, and I always say him
Speaker 3: because I played against Michael.
Speaker 1: Jordan, George Gervin, Andrew Tony.
Speaker 3: And those guys when they passed the ball, they have
Speaker 3: a tendency to take a break for a second. Larry
Speaker 3: never was gonna take a break. Larry's gonna go get
Speaker 3: an offensive rebound. He's gonna go sell a back pitch.
Speaker 3: He was gonna do something to impact that possession. So
Speaker 3: that's why he was the about six eight six nine,
Speaker 3: six nine.
Speaker 1: Constantly on the moves. Crazy.
Speaker 4: What's your opinion on when some of these younger players
Speaker 4: being disrespectful to day saying players in the AD didn't
Speaker 4: have any skill.
Speaker 3: Don't like it, but you have to respect their game.
Speaker 3: And again talk is cheap for me one to mine.
Speaker 3: And I really liked this young man, Anthony Edwards, some
Speaker 3: of the things he said. You know, and I asked
Speaker 3: somebody the other day, I said, do you think he
Speaker 3: could app ask you guys, I do you think he
Speaker 3: could have played in our era back then, eighties, nineties?
Speaker 3: I think he atted to so in saying that he
Speaker 3: has to respect the game because he's looking at it
Speaker 3: from his point of view. Now, always tell these guys,
Speaker 3: now google me and then you'll get a chance to see.
Speaker 3: But you know what, basketball was tough when we came up, man,
Speaker 3: Basketball was hard, physical basketball. It was referees had I
Speaker 3: tell people this all the time we played. I don't
Speaker 3: know if you guys did, but I played when there
Speaker 3: was only two officials and so they didn't see everything,
Speaker 3: so you could lay some wood on somebody and and
Speaker 3: hit them. But again, the young players that are talking
Speaker 3: this game now, it's a different game. It's a perimeter
Speaker 3: game now. When we grew up, it was about take
Speaker 3: that motherfucker to the who and inside out all the time.
Speaker 3: So I respect these young kids, but I just wish
Speaker 3: they would respect us a little bit more instead of
Speaker 3: opening your mouth. Look at how the game has changed
Speaker 3: to where we have made it easy financially for you guys,
Speaker 3: as well as the game the way they play the
Speaker 3: game because the rules have changed. I was not so
Speaker 3: much physicality in the game, but it is slowly getting there,
Speaker 3: but we changed that.
Speaker 2: I think you touched on something though, because obviously right
Speaker 2: now there's talks you know, with the ratings being down
Speaker 2: and viewership being down. You came in the era and
Speaker 2: we piggybacked off the era you left of inside out basketball, physicality,
Speaker 2: getting to the basket, getting to the foul line, playing
Speaker 2: in the paint.
Speaker 1: You know, Steph Curry comes along. This is a copycat league.
Speaker 2: They started dynasty in the whole world, from grassroots basketball
Speaker 2: to the pros are shooting way too many threes. Now,
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on the game of basketball as
Speaker 2: a whole.
Speaker 3: Right now, you know what, mad I looked at the
Speaker 3: game when the Vlades and some of the other players,
Speaker 3: Ku Koch and those guys were coming in, and I
Speaker 3: love that because I think international basketball is a little
Speaker 3: bit more fundamental than ours. And Norm Nixon and I
Speaker 3: was talking about this, how the international players, we thought
Speaker 3: that we would change them, but they changed our game
Speaker 3: and they have really made that big and it they
Speaker 3: BIG's obsolete now almost you know, you got Winby that's
Speaker 3: doing something. But he plays more like a European player,
Speaker 3: but mb players like that. There's no more inside games.
Speaker 3: So for me, it's a game that has changed twice
Speaker 3: since I've been watching it growing up here watching it
Speaker 3: in the sixties and seventies, how the game was very slow.
Speaker 3: Magic and Bird comes in and they makes passing, they
Speaker 3: make team play, they make the passion for the game
Speaker 3: a little bit more lively. So viewership shot out the roof,
Speaker 3: and now through the eighties and nineties and two thousand
Speaker 3: is going back to that again. So viewership is down
Speaker 3: because the way people are playing the game, and I
Speaker 3: think the way we played a little bit more creativity athletically,
Speaker 3: although you got some athletes that can play. Now, these
Speaker 3: guys here are stuck on three point shooting, and that
Speaker 3: to me is just killing the game. But it's about
Speaker 3: the dunk now. It ain't about the mid range game.
Speaker 3: It's not about that layup. It's not about scoring easily.
Speaker 3: It's about making it really look creative. And you know
Speaker 3: the and one videos and the PlayStation games that has
Speaker 3: changed the game, that has helped changed the game in
Speaker 3: a negative way, but also.
Speaker 4: Want a positive way to the game. Question I want
Speaker 4: to ask you, growing growing up in LA, how does
Speaker 4: it feel to be on the one of the best
Speaker 4: Laker teams ever and also one of the best being
Speaker 4: one of the best Lakers ever growing up in LA?
Speaker 4: Like that's that's That's like me saying I'm growing up
Speaker 4: in Houston and I retired as one of the best,
Speaker 4: the best Rockets ever.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. So, I mean, isn't that
Speaker 1: a great feeling to say you from here and you
Speaker 1: one of the best Lakers ever? Jack?
Speaker 3: Absolutely feeling you don't want growing up and coming up
Speaker 3: And actually the day that I got drafted in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine, I was at the park because I didn't
Speaker 3: think that I was gonna get.
Speaker 1: Drafted by the Lakers. There's been some great players.
Speaker 3: Just to throw one out, the Reggie Dias, great player
Speaker 3: of morning side, Reggie with Chicago. So I'm thinking all
Speaker 3: of us are going back east, back east. So when
Speaker 3: they told me that the Lakers are drafted me, my
Speaker 3: job then was to kind of like be one of
Speaker 3: those players, which I eventually became to just play for
Speaker 3: one team and play their home team, And.
Speaker 1: Very proud of that, very very proud of that. But
Speaker 1: it is it's a dream to come true.
Speaker 3: You know, as young people, we grow up and we
Speaker 3: think about certain things in life, where you want to
Speaker 3: be an astronaut president. I thought about being a basketball player.
Speaker 3: But the way my career is unfolded, it's still I
Speaker 3: pinched myself every day on half. You can say that, yeah,
Speaker 3: it is absolutely amazing to do the things that I
Speaker 3: was able to do here at home.
Speaker 4: You almost didn't get a chance to play basketball. You
Speaker 4: cut your knee when you was young. The doctor said
Speaker 4: he never thought you'd be able to walk again.
Speaker 1: Never walk.
Speaker 3: You know, my grandmother and halloweens to in the sixties
Speaker 3: and seventies, they cooked that chicken grease and bacon grease
Speaker 3: and stuff, and they put it in that folzier can
Speaker 3: that they cut off the top and they put it
Speaker 3: by the back door, sort of cool. If they wanted
Speaker 3: they go get a spoon and dip out of it. Well,
Speaker 3: this was some hot grease and it had melted. I
Speaker 3: mean it hadn't frozen up yet, so some dogs had
Speaker 3: knocked it over.
Speaker 1: We had a dog. So I walked outside and slipped
Speaker 1: on that and fell right in the middle of me.
Speaker 3: Being a skinny person, my knee was caught right in
Speaker 3: there and it cut it all the way to the bone,
Speaker 3: one hundred and two stitches. But you know, my grandmother
Speaker 3: was a very huh, let's catch you off. Hold were
Speaker 3: you about five? And I was skinny, so I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm like, the do this thing here? So I mean
Speaker 3: it was an easy cut. But my grandmother was a
Speaker 3: woman of faith, prayed a lot and went to church.
Speaker 3: And I tell people this from the age I was
Speaker 3: born until I went to college, I went to church
Speaker 3: three times a week my whole life. So she sat
Speaker 3: up with me that whole night and prayed. And you
Speaker 3: know that not only was I able to walk, but
Speaker 3: some people said I was able to fly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so definitely that went to Pasadena High School, Pasadena
Speaker 4: Community College. Talk about the JUCO to the NBA route
Speaker 4: back then, I a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Look at D two.
Speaker 3: Small college, junior college is a bad way to take.
Speaker 3: I think for me it was a good route because
Speaker 3: I didn't have the credentials coming out of high school.
Speaker 3: Uh to go on and now nowadays AAU basketball is
Speaker 3: killing the game. I mean these kids here because all
Speaker 3: of them think you got kids being held back. So
Speaker 3: for junior college, that was a good route for me.
Speaker 3: It helped me academically because I was a bad student.
Speaker 3: I went to school to be an athlete student. I
Speaker 3: didn't go to be a student athlete. And I became
Speaker 3: academically an eligible at junior college and that set the
Speaker 3: path for me to get my grades right. So my
Speaker 3: sophomore year I turned things around and that's when I
Speaker 3: became a better athlete on the floor because I was
Speaker 3: taking care of business off the floor and that led
Speaker 3: me on. But junior college is a good route. Sometimes
Speaker 3: you get good players there. There's many of them, and
Speaker 3: it can be a slow route for you because sometimes
Speaker 3: when you go straight D one you're being pushed that
Speaker 3: you don't get a chance to really enjoy the college life.
Speaker 1: But I got a chance to do that. I went
Speaker 1: for two weeks.
Speaker 4: You got guys like Tiny Archibald, Jimmy Butler, Steve Francis,
Speaker 4: Larry Johnson's, Bob McAdoo, Dennis Robin, all those guys.
Speaker 1: Pretty well.
Speaker 4: Yes, when did the og high socks come in? Did
Speaker 4: you start wearing them at a young age or when
Speaker 4: you got to the league. That's when you start wearing
Speaker 4: the socks to your thighs.
Speaker 1: Boy, you know what Jack really? First of all, I
Speaker 1: was away to keep make my legs a little bigger.
Speaker 1: Back then it was about to I didn't have big cass.
Speaker 3: But how that unfolded was nineteen seventy four. We were
Speaker 3: playing a team called El Rancho. It was the first
Speaker 3: time they had brought back Al Rancho El Rancho, and
Speaker 3: it was the first time they were bringing back high
Speaker 3: school game of the Weeks because it had disappeared in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy, so seventy four they was bringing it back
Speaker 3: with my grandmother at that time had glaucoma, wasn't.
Speaker 1: Doing well, and my team was all black, and so
Speaker 1: they were coming back.
Speaker 3: She had a little small black and white TV, and
Speaker 3: she said, baby, you gotta do something so I can
Speaker 3: distinguish you from the other one. So what I did
Speaker 3: is I wore two white sweat bands. I wore my
Speaker 3: socks up high, and I pulled my strings out and
Speaker 3: I was, you can see you, yeah, And I was
Speaker 3: I had the twenty four point fifteen rebounds and four
Speaker 3: dunks that game. And I said, if you know what
Speaker 3: I'm rolling with.
Speaker 1: I love it all. That's a dope story.
Speaker 2: Drafted in seventy nine, same year that Jerry Buss buys
Speaker 2: the team. You arrived one year prior to Magic, your
Speaker 2: rookie year. Jerry West was the coach, Kareem was the
Speaker 2: big dog.
Speaker 1: What does that scene to you?
Speaker 2: As Jackson stated, you know, we talked about your whole career,
Speaker 2: but going back to the very beginning Pasadena Pasadena College,
Speaker 2: you say, you make a pit stop in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: But now you're a Los Angeles Laker. But this is
Speaker 2: before the Lakers are everything. You know what I mean,
Speaker 2: you helped make them everything. But what was it like
Speaker 2: when you first, you know, stepped in and got a
Speaker 2: chance to see the form and meet Cap and Jerry
Speaker 2: and all these guys.
Speaker 3: You know what that you guys know this when you
Speaker 3: get to a team and you're coming in from college
Speaker 3: to the pros. And the first thing I did, we
Speaker 3: just parked over at Loyal and Marymount, and I remember
Speaker 3: going into training camp. I was kind of nervous, really
Speaker 3: didn't know what to expect. And I walked into the
Speaker 3: gym and at the other end was Kareem shooting Scott
Speaker 3: Hook's and I looked at him and I said, damn,
Speaker 3: that's for me. It was Louil Sindor because i 'new
Speaker 3: it before then, but Kareem. So I go in there
Speaker 3: and he looks at me. He go, hey, man, what
Speaker 3: the fuck are you looking at? I said, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to said fucking locker rooms over there.
Speaker 3: Go in there and get your shit ready. This Kareem
Speaker 3: talked the first time, you guys in every convery time
Speaker 3: I ever met him. So I go in there and chained,
Speaker 3: and then one thing led to another. But the fold
Speaker 3: became very, very passionate because with Doctor Buss buying the team,
Speaker 3: his whole goal was for Los Angeles to be loved
Speaker 3: by everybody. And the one thing Doctor Buss always said,
Speaker 3: is you guys want We want you to entertain the entertainers,
Speaker 3: and that was our role. So they bring in Magic
Speaker 3: Johnson and this guy here, man, I had never been
Speaker 3: around a player that enjoyed and loved the game so much.
Speaker 3: I mean, this dude came every day. And back then
Speaker 3: we used to have them big old boom boxes that
Speaker 3: you have and you carry around there, you go one
Speaker 3: back there. But Magic was bigger than that one. And
Speaker 3: he was always playing Frankly Beverly and Mays or Luther
Speaker 3: Vandros or something like that. And he used to come
Speaker 3: in and just very infectious. And when we got with
Speaker 3: the Lakers, they had a lot of old super old g's,
Speaker 3: Ron Boone, Lou Hudson, Kenny Carr, Kenny Thompson. They had
Speaker 3: a lot of older veterans that are on their way out.
Speaker 3: So we had to fight, and them dudes had that
Speaker 3: old man's strength. And you know you're playing them dudes
Speaker 3: in the gym, they hold you by the arm. You
Speaker 3: can't get away from him. But they taught us how
Speaker 3: to play the game, a very rugged game. But once
Speaker 3: they got out of the set and it became Magic's team,
Speaker 3: things became magical, and it was about enjoyment, entertained, passed
Speaker 3: the ball. If you held on to it too long,
Speaker 3: you would hear people saying, move the ball, Move the ball.
Speaker 3: And that was something that wasn't familiar with the seventies
Speaker 3: growing up because the Celtics was winning everything. The Lakers
Speaker 3: and everybody was just dribble, dribble, dribble. And Magic changed that,
Speaker 3: and he changed it for us, and doctor Bus took
Speaker 3: it and brought in the Laker girls, and oh the
Speaker 3: world just changed real quick. Did you get a chance
Speaker 3: to see I think you might have been able to
Speaker 3: play with I know Matt for sure, but I think
Speaker 3: you might have been because you that motherfucker had a
Speaker 3: little nasty aning too.
Speaker 4: One thing that we missed a couple of games. I
Speaker 4: probably been stuck in that little club, the farm club.
Speaker 4: I probably been sleeping there.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 3: Then you got traded. Magic said you go up there,
Speaker 3: but you better be on the bus the next day.
Speaker 1: So that was Magic ru Jerry's rule.
Speaker 3: That was everybody's rule. But said, hey, listen, you can
Speaker 3: have fun, but I should his business man come playing.
Speaker 3: And when we got into certain cities, we go out
Speaker 3: on the road and Magic would tell everybody, listen, if
Speaker 3: we played the next day, you got one o'clock curfew.
Speaker 3: It was this dude said a curfew for me. All right,
Speaker 3: funk around and you come back and see Magic was
Speaker 3: a big part of the team.
Speaker 1: You may not play.
Speaker 3: So we all kind of learned that and we just
Speaker 3: fell in line because that is the things that breed championships.
Speaker 4: You remember your first experience at the farm Club. I
Speaker 4: was buried, so you didn't function. I walked through there
Speaker 4: with my wife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I would look yeah, okay, listen, my blinders
Speaker 1: were like this. They weren't like that. They were more like,
Speaker 1: are you still married to the same woman? No? Okay,
Speaker 1: well okay, we've been married for twenty three years, a
Speaker 1: long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but talk to I mean, obviously, all jokes aside,
Speaker 2: and we can kind of grint about it now. I
Speaker 2: mean that team was known for getting it in, definitely
Speaker 2: on the court, but enjoying themselves off the court, and
Speaker 2: you being a married man.
Speaker 1: We're known for that too. Yes, we were for that.
Speaker 1: We were married. We were cracking. Yeah, we was cracked.
Speaker 1: What was it like though? What was it? Talk to us?
Speaker 2: Because I mean, that was a game within the game.
Speaker 2: I mean, the Forum Club is legendary. People tell stories
Speaker 2: about that. What was that Forum Club like? You know what,
Speaker 2: the Forum Club was a different place. It was almost
Speaker 2: like Studio fifty four back in New York and New
Speaker 2: York at the time. And Dr Buss wanted that. He
Speaker 2: he paraded women that came to the game around and
Speaker 2: then he would take his entourage and go sit up
Speaker 2: by the flag. But that was part of la and uh.
Speaker 2: The only ones that really partook of that a lot.
Speaker 2: Myself was married, Bira Scott was buried. Norm Nixon and
Speaker 2: Magic Johnson were the only single guys, so we kind
Speaker 2: of lived vicariously through them and the thing up of
Speaker 2: the Playboy Mansion or wherever they were at and they
Speaker 2: come back, we would all be sitting on the bus
Speaker 2: the next day, you know what happened.
Speaker 1: So we're hearing.
Speaker 3: But then as we go through that later on in
Speaker 3: the later the eighties, you know, people started partaking a
Speaker 3: little bit more. We just kept it under wraps, but
Speaker 3: our main goal was to win play basketball the night.
Speaker 2: You got to know this, anybody in all you saw
Speaker 2: other at the Forim Club at the games because he said,
Speaker 2: mister Buss's goal was obviously the win, but also entertained.
Speaker 2: So the stars and stars were sitting there watching you
Speaker 2: guys every night or partying right next to you guys.
Speaker 3: Well, Diane Cannon, he was a heart throb in the
Speaker 3: seventy eighties, and when she kind of like took us
Speaker 3: under her and became, along with Jack Nicholson, our super fans,
Speaker 3: it was kind of impressive to see her. But Paul Abdul,
Speaker 3: before she became Paul Abdul, was a Laker girl. I mean,
Speaker 3: there was many many that came through there. But again,
Speaker 3: like I said, I lived a lot of my life
Speaker 3: through Norm and Magic listening to those guys.
Speaker 1: So you saw some good ship through their eyes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jack have seen a lot of basketball, Jack Nicholas,
Speaker 4: You've seen a lot of good basketball.
Speaker 3: Jack was so down to earth because we used to
Speaker 3: go to on the Rocks, which is above the Roxy
Speaker 3: in Hollywood, and Jack would be in there and we
Speaker 3: used to party with him, you know, drink and you know,
Speaker 3: it was a really intimate setting nightclub. So we'd all
Speaker 3: be up in there and just to hear some of
Speaker 3: the stories. But again, you watched this one floor of
Speaker 3: the Cuckoo's Nest. You watch him in many other movies
Speaker 3: that he had, and I couldn't believe that this guy
Speaker 3: was standing next to me, but so knowledgeable of a fan,
Speaker 3: knew the game inside and out. And my one great
Speaker 3: memory of Jack is that in nineteen eighty four we
Speaker 3: were going and you know, obviously not being able to
Speaker 3: beat the Celtics, and we go there in the Celtics
Speaker 3: wild beat them, and Jack said, you know what, fuck
Speaker 3: y'all mooned them, sit up top, pull his past down
Speaker 3: and move the fans my way out. And for us,
Speaker 3: that was our sign that, you know what, the Celtics
Speaker 3: had never beat us again, and we came back in
Speaker 3: eighty five and beat them, So I love it.
Speaker 1: That was our unspoken leader.
Speaker 2: Was how factual? Was Winning Time any factual to it?
Speaker 2: Or was it just peer entertainment?
Speaker 3: I would peer entertainment. I would say that Jerry West
Speaker 3: docked the bus. Were never like that, pat Riley never smoked,
Speaker 3: And no, it wasn't factual at all. But one thing,
Speaker 3: I'll give them the people they got to depict some
Speaker 3: of us.
Speaker 1: They hit a good job.
Speaker 2: So when you see that, I mean again, they're telling
Speaker 2: your story. And I heard Magic come out and say
Speaker 2: something some other guys liked. Was there any part of
Speaker 2: you that could enjoy because I enjoyed it? Because I didn't.
Speaker 2: I was born in nineteen eighty and you guys are
Speaker 2: my favorite team, So just kind of imagining what it
Speaker 2: could be like. Although you say it wasn't like that
Speaker 2: any part of you enjoyed it, or you're just like
Speaker 2: this is never watch really watched it.
Speaker 1: The one thing I heard about me is that I
Speaker 1: broke down. I broke down on the highway.
Speaker 3: My wife and I'm walking up and down and I'm
Speaker 3: cursing and everything, and my wife was under the car
Speaker 3: trying to fix the car. That the breakdown happened. But
Speaker 3: I'm a man's man. Ifthing gonna happen, my crumba gup.
Speaker 3: But no, that that wasn't really didn't pay any attention
Speaker 3: to it. But I heard a lot of my friends
Speaker 3: washing it, and a lot of people always said, well,
Speaker 3: this go down, that go down.
Speaker 1: I'd say ninety percent of it was fake, but people
Speaker 1: enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: I don't know, like I said, we don't know if
Speaker 4: it's true or not. But the guy who played Norm
Speaker 4: Nixon killed it. It's the same guy played in Snowfall.
Speaker 4: He played and crazy on Snowfall, but he killed it.
Speaker 4: He played he played nor him. Real dude played. Magic
Speaker 4: was good too, Yeah he did. Lady Bird was good.
Speaker 4: He was good too.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed. I ain't gonna lie. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: was true or not.
Speaker 2: But again, growing up, you know, being a Showtime fan,
Speaker 2: I thought it was dope. Your relationship with the late
Speaker 2: great Jerry West.
Speaker 1: Like a father son.
Speaker 3: And you know, Jerry was one of uh one of
Speaker 3: the players that picked a couple of us, and we're
Speaker 3: affectionately known Undertoned Jerry's kids and myself Byron Scott, A. C. Green,
Speaker 3: James Worthy, Michael Thompson. I mean, he appreciated Magic, part
Speaker 3: of that. But Jerry was an interesting individual man. And
Speaker 3: the thing that hurt me about Winning Times is how
Speaker 3: they depicted him, because that was not.
Speaker 1: Jerry West at all. Jerry very rarely cursed.
Speaker 3: He was a man into his family. He didn't have
Speaker 3: any ratin and raving around the office or anything like that.
Speaker 3: And I had an opportunity in ninety one when I
Speaker 3: retired to actually sit my office was next to his,
Speaker 3: and this title that everybody has now special assistant to
Speaker 3: the general Manager. That title was made for me by
Speaker 3: Jerry West to give me an opportunity to learn the
Speaker 3: business goings and learning how to scout and recruit players.
Speaker 3: But Jerry Man was a very forceful individual. He understood
Speaker 3: the game of basketball to the tea. He taught me
Speaker 3: how to scout and recruit. And it was just such
Speaker 3: a shame how they did that to him because that
Speaker 3: wasn't Jerry. But you know what, the people that really
Speaker 3: know Jerry, it hurts a little bit, but we knew
Speaker 3: who he was and that wasn't him. But my relationship
Speaker 3: goes very deep.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: After I retired, I had an alcohol and substance abuse
Speaker 3: and Jerry was the first one to pull me to
Speaker 3: the side. He was like, Coop, what's going on? And
Speaker 3: he understood it. So I went and spent forty five
Speaker 3: days that John Lucas is down in Houston rehab place
Speaker 3: there and probably one of the best things to turn
Speaker 3: my life around. And sometimes we can get letters straight
Speaker 3: on different things, and I was able that Jerry West
Speaker 3: was able to see that and he caught it early
Speaker 3: before my issues became even bigger than I couldn't handle.
Speaker 3: So I go down there, I take care of that.
Speaker 3: Came back, I still had a job. He was still
Speaker 3: rooting for me, and until the day he died. I
Speaker 3: spoke to him a week before he passed away. Jerry
Speaker 3: and I was very, very close. It's going to be missed.
Speaker 3: But again, we try to live our life to implement,
Speaker 3: to imitate who he was. And I think a lot
Speaker 3: of us do that.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't really care about what a lot of people think,
Speaker 4: but our hohle. What Jerry told me about my game
Speaker 4: did a heart, you know, just hearing him say that.
Speaker 4: We was in the Golden State at the time. We
Speaker 4: had to go back, Yeah, and either we spoke when
Speaker 4: to havelftime, they brought us back for something. I think
Speaker 4: you're still on the team probably, yeah, and walking out
Speaker 4: the arena, I was just like, how you doing, mister West.
Speaker 4: He was like Stephen Jackson, Yeah, I remember you doing
Speaker 4: this to start talking about my game, and like that
Speaker 4: shocked me to hear Jerry West, you know, actually know
Speaker 4: like personal things in my game.
Speaker 1: So that meant everything to me, you know, knowing who
Speaker 1: he was and what he meant to basketball. Jerry loved basketball, man,
Speaker 1: and I mean he loved all players that played.
Speaker 3: And if you we especially with the Lakers, if we could,
Speaker 3: we would go up to him at one Jarry, what
Speaker 3: do you think what about? He could tell you different
Speaker 3: things that went on, and of course of your game,
Speaker 3: you know, had the three fifty seven market the second quarter?
Speaker 1: Why did you take that shot?
Speaker 4: So we talk about bird being black. I think Jered
Speaker 4: was the first one that was black. Jerr, Yeah, he
Speaker 4: was a brother. He was a brother.
Speaker 2: Brouh, he was a brother. Pat Riley comes in and
Speaker 2: takes over. What was that transition like for you on
Speaker 2: the team.
Speaker 3: Well, with him being as an assistant coach, we kind
Speaker 3: of knew what we were gonna get. And one thing
Speaker 3: I always say about coach Riley is that attention to detail.
Speaker 3: I had never heard a coach say that that much
Speaker 3: about anything, and Pat was always talking about that across
Speaker 3: the t's dot the I attention to detail. And he
Speaker 3: was the first one to set me on the path
Speaker 3: of wanting to be a coach the way he handled us.
Speaker 3: But Pat was cool, Uh, he understood when he took
Speaker 3: took the reins over the team that don't fuck it up,
Speaker 3: get out the way and as but as we went on,
Speaker 3: he started kind of developing and putting his fingerprints or
Speaker 3: handprints more on the team. But when he took over, man,
Speaker 3: we knew we were gonna win. He had the look.
Speaker 3: Pat told a lot of us how to dress you.
Speaker 3: You know, they had a little thing now called the
Speaker 3: Riley spread. There's a shirt you can buy that. So
Speaker 3: but Pat was really really nice man and just influential
Speaker 3: all of our games on and off the court.
Speaker 1: Tough training camps, very tough man. We would go.
Speaker 3: Pat wasn't big into going two and a half three hours,
Speaker 3: but if we went two hours, and he'd let you know, hey,
Speaker 3: you guys were in here for two hours, so you
Speaker 3: either give it to me or I can string it out.
Speaker 3: And we messed around and he strung it out one time.
Speaker 3: So when he would come in every day, hey, we're
Speaker 3: gonna be here for our forty give me what you got.
Speaker 3: And once we understood that, we started practicing real hard.
Speaker 1: But he was pushing us, pushing us.
Speaker 3: He pushed us to be the first team in sixteen
Speaker 3: years at that time, to repeat in eighty seven eighty eight,
Speaker 3: and then he kind of like broke us in eighty
Speaker 3: nine because he pushed us too hard and we're going
Speaker 3: back to play the Pistons and we, you know, have
Speaker 3: our first practice back there. He gets there and wants
Speaker 3: to have a two and a half hour practice, and
Speaker 3: that's when Byron got hurt. Magic was hurting in the finals.
Speaker 3: The finals, we did, we did, I'll tell you we'd
Speaker 3: have whooped the Pistons. Ass we'd have been a repeat
Speaker 3: now that Isaiah and he gave us hell. But if
Speaker 3: we you know, and then we thowt that the ball
Speaker 3: goes out and then Magic pulls his hand the first
Speaker 3: two minutes of the game, so we just weren't that team.
Speaker 1: And they went on to win. But up until that point,
Speaker 1: and before we had that practice, we were going to
Speaker 1: beat the crazy. It's all called the way Pat right handled.
Speaker 2: Us question because obviously what made him great is what
Speaker 2: has kind of had people looking at him a certain way.
Speaker 2: Now he's built something with you guys, he built something
Speaker 2: in Miami, and now we're seeing the fallout with Jimmy
Speaker 2: Butler not wanting to play there and Pat kind of
Speaker 2: standing on his principles and morals. We were talking about
Speaker 2: this on our other show earlier. Will Pat be that
Speaker 2: way till he dies? Or do you think Pat has
Speaker 2: it in him to kind of conform to what this
Speaker 2: newer era of basketball and how players are.
Speaker 3: Well, I think he's conformed, but if you look at
Speaker 3: his rollers behind the scene, supposed to pretty much is
Speaker 3: out front and handles the day to day thing is
Speaker 3: on the court, and I think he still has a
Speaker 3: little pat Riley in him, but he understands the communication
Speaker 3: and how to handle today's players. But again, Pat is
Speaker 3: about that heat culture and that's never going to change
Speaker 3: because he's developed the culture when we were winning in LA.
Speaker 3: He went to New York and developed something really nice
Speaker 3: there and then on to Miami. So Pat's never going
Speaker 3: to change because he knows what it takes to win basketball.
Speaker 3: And I think it's not a do it my way
Speaker 3: or the highway with him, but do it this way
Speaker 3: because this way wins, or you'll hit the posture there.
Speaker 3: So you know, that's unfortunate that Jimmy Butler. But one
Speaker 3: man trashes another man's treasure and I'm trying to get.
Speaker 1: Him out here.
Speaker 3: Poke the Lakers, come on, man, do something because they
Speaker 3: give it a fire sail over there. Man, you get
Speaker 3: Jimmy Butler and put him with adm Le. You know,
Speaker 3: everybody knows the issue. So coach Riley or whoever is called,
Speaker 3: he's behind behind so much shot. You're not gonna get
Speaker 3: what you want. So the best thing you you can do,
Speaker 3: I think at that point in time, would be to
Speaker 3: take the best deal you can get.
Speaker 1: I think the Lakers will come up with something. How
Speaker 1: did Cooper Loup come about? That came about from Magic?
Speaker 3: Because when Magic was at Michigan State, he had a
Speaker 3: young man named Greg Kelser playing with him and when
Speaker 3: they beat Indiana State, that's what he was throwing the
Speaker 3: log to him. So when he came to the team
Speaker 3: and I wasn't doing much scoring because my whole focus
Speaker 3: was about defense, was to play, he said, cool, we
Speaker 3: got to find a way to get you to score, man,
Speaker 3: because I wouldn't shoot the ball. I just get it
Speaker 3: inside inside, And that's how it developed. So he said, listen, cool,
Speaker 3: we're on the break. Man, my boy k I used
Speaker 3: to throw it to him, So would you see me
Speaker 3: do this or make a move like that.
Speaker 1: You just go to the hoop.
Speaker 3: And a lot of people never thought Magic could get
Speaker 3: you the ball, but he could get you the basketball.
Speaker 3: And example, we had this guy named Joe Cooper, big
Speaker 3: guy forget where you're are.
Speaker 1: But Joe Cooper was seven to.
Speaker 3: One and Magic at training camp would tell all the
Speaker 3: new people, listen, if you cut through the key, get
Speaker 3: your hand up and your hands up, because I'll get
Speaker 3: you the basketball.
Speaker 1: And I remember he told Joe Cooper that. He told him.
Speaker 3: One time we were in practice hself, Joe went through there,
Speaker 3: Magic said, Joe, get your hands up.
Speaker 1: Man, I see you.
Speaker 3: Next time he went through there and he turned and
Speaker 3: looked back. The ball hit right in the face and
Speaker 3: busted his nose and blood was everywhere. They wiped him
Speaker 3: up the next day. The guy got traded. So Magic
Speaker 3: when he tell you something, man as, I just used
Speaker 3: to go and that's how that developed. He throw it
Speaker 3: and Chick hern is the one that coined it, the
Speaker 3: Cooper loop, you know, before it was just the alley oop.
Speaker 3: And then obviously my name being Coop he added that.
Speaker 3: So he's another one I missed.
Speaker 1: Check her. He was big and our growth as a
Speaker 1: team and as the NBA got better.
Speaker 2: Talk to us about Magic as just obviously we saw
Speaker 2: what you guys put on the court as team and
Speaker 2: team team and championships.
Speaker 1: Well, what kind of leader was Magic.
Speaker 3: Magic was always a special person and you could tell
Speaker 3: that God had something for him and to be out
Speaker 3: there and lead. And obviously we see the end result now,
Speaker 3: but in the beginning we could see it because he
Speaker 3: understood the game, he understood people, and he understood his
Speaker 3: value to the game of basketball. And whenever I talk
Speaker 3: about Magic, you have to talk about Larry Bird when
Speaker 3: you talk about the growth of basketball in the eighties.
Speaker 3: But Magic has done something spectacular beyond that.
Speaker 1: Man. Obviously he's getting the Presidential Award for Yeah, So.
Speaker 3: I don't know if something honor, Yes, honor him and
Speaker 3: messy and I mean it's those are the type of
Speaker 3: things that he was always headed for. And you know what,
Speaker 3: when he came out and said he was HIV positive,
Speaker 3: people look down on him. And obviously AIDS and HIV
Speaker 3: awareness was not as aware as it is today.
Speaker 1: Magic brought that to the forefront.
Speaker 3: And you know what, I was in the front office
Speaker 3: when he announced that he was HIV positive and he
Speaker 3: pulled me in. It was me, Jerry West, doctor Bust,
Speaker 3: Bill Scharman, a couple of people and he pulls me
Speaker 3: in and he goes Coop, Listen, I got HIV and
Speaker 3: I started crying because at that time, all we knew
Speaker 3: is if you had HIV the virus, you're gonna get
Speaker 3: full blown AIDS.
Speaker 1: And I remember crying and I said, he's go man,
Speaker 1: stop crying. Man.
Speaker 3: I said, well, Eve, how long are they giving you?
Speaker 3: He said, MANIM want beat this. And he said it
Speaker 3: was such a such a straight face and a belief
Speaker 3: in his heart that you knew. So when we went
Speaker 3: out and he actually did the press conference, I mean
Speaker 3: it was amazing. They flee this young man stand up
Speaker 3: there and for him to try to come back, a
Speaker 3: lot of people Karl Malone was one of the woman
Speaker 3: not playing against him because this and that blew that
Speaker 3: out of proportion.
Speaker 1: But a candy still kept.
Speaker 3: His steadiness and as you see, magic good magic, and
Speaker 3: he's all the man he is today was the man
Speaker 3: you saw when he first came into the league.
Speaker 1: He just grew into that guy.
Speaker 3: So you could see there was greatness all about him,
Speaker 3: not just on the court, but off the court. He's
Speaker 3: a man of God, loves his family, loves his friends,
Speaker 3: and he takes advantage of all the opportunities that have
Speaker 3: been given him.
Speaker 4: Absolutely Mos Malone, Jamorrow Willks Bobby Jones, Cavanat, and Michael Thompson.
Speaker 4: You were a part of the iconic Nike Force one
Speaker 4: Memory slide. Can you talk about that that campaign for
Speaker 4: one right there? Check it out everybody. Everybody was waiting
Speaker 4: for the flood though.
Speaker 2: But this is before Nike was popular though, exactly, and
Speaker 2: shooting all the kids wear.
Speaker 1: Now you thought you were sweet, You thought you were
Speaker 1: sweet right now. I was.
Speaker 3: I had to take advantage of that that shot because
Speaker 3: I wasn't gonna get my own shoe.
Speaker 1: And when they came out with that, I think that
Speaker 1: was such an iconic picture. That of one thing.
Speaker 3: I want you try to look at that picture. See
Speaker 3: how Moses calling everybody else's collar is kind of tight? Yeah,
Speaker 3: most too big defend in his and he's split all
Speaker 3: the way down to the waist. So they actually had
Speaker 3: to get pins and pin most.
Speaker 1: Of the hold on. But this is the key question, though,
Speaker 1: is that a onesie or y'all got y'all tucked in? No,
Speaker 1: it's a onesie. It's the ones that But I was
Speaker 1: so proud to do that picture. I was eighty two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's iconic. Yeah, real warriors. Yeah, I tell you, that's
Speaker 1: the original Air Force one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Air Force ones, and that's the shoe that all
Speaker 3: the young people wear today.
Speaker 1: You know what.
Speaker 3: And I'm say this because I love Nike. I'm a
Speaker 3: big Nike person. It was a fucked up shoe to wear. Man,
Speaker 3: you couldn't play.
Speaker 1: Balling because it was just it was kind of clunky.
Speaker 1: You can't hoop them, No, you couldn't.
Speaker 3: But they the ones that they have for us were
Speaker 3: real high tops, I mean big high tops. But you
Speaker 3: know what, I always started crying I watched that because
Speaker 3: I remember we were up at five o'clock in the
Speaker 3: morning doing that and well we had to get there
Speaker 3: at four the background and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a nice pick, timeless pick. Hell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's dope.
Speaker 3: I don't know why they put me over by Moses.
Speaker 3: I should have been on the other side. That's another story.
Speaker 1: He was around me cool.
Speaker 2: Five championships and a nine year window crazy eighty to
Speaker 2: eighty eight. Played against the Celtics three of those times.
Speaker 1: What were those rivalries?
Speaker 2: Like, I mean, obviously there's documentary thirty for thirties and
Speaker 2: we've seen all kind of stuff, but as a key
Speaker 2: figure in those games and those series, going to the
Speaker 2: old Boston Garden and the one hundred and fucking fifteen
Speaker 2: degrees in there, and then coming back to La and
Speaker 2: finally getting over the hump.
Speaker 1: What were those battles and wars like?
Speaker 3: You know what, it's that old saying cliche, Iron sharpings iron,
Speaker 3: and that's what Boston did for us, and I think
Speaker 3: Detroit did that for Chicago. You know the way that
Speaker 3: Chicago earlier, young Mike had to fight to get through them.
Speaker 3: But playing the Boston Celtics was, you know, it's gonna
Speaker 3: be a battle, and the important thing about playing them
Speaker 3: is who was going to establish and and their game?
Speaker 3: And we were up tempo game, but some kind of way,
Speaker 3: Boston always brought it down to their level and when
Speaker 3: they did, they were able to beat us. But once
Speaker 3: we turned that series around, and it all took Kurt
Speaker 3: Rams getting closed and tie closed line, that let us
Speaker 3: understand that the Celtics were about whatever they could do
Speaker 3: to win, and then we had to change that. But
Speaker 3: those rivals were something very very special. I think the
Speaker 3: whole world, the NBA basketball world, was waiting. That's who
Speaker 3: they wanted to see. They needed Boston to get through,
Speaker 3: They needed the Lakers to get through, and the NBA
Speaker 3: took advantage of that.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I mean, you may not have known at the time
Speaker 2: because you're in it in the moment, but you know
Speaker 2: a lot of people say that, you know, Magic and
Speaker 2: Bird kind of helped shape and save where the NBA
Speaker 2: was headed and changed the direction of where it was going.
Speaker 2: And again, obviously you were playing in those games, but
Speaker 2: did you feel it, Like you said, the world needed
Speaker 2: Boston to get through and the world needed the Lakers
Speaker 2: to get through. And you have a white superstar versus
Speaker 2: black superstar uptown l a team versus you know, a
Speaker 2: blue collar, blue collar racist out there racist all what
Speaker 2: out out that way. But when you guys collided on
Speaker 2: the court, you know, obviously in the moment, you may
Speaker 2: not have known it, but looking back, you know, would
Speaker 2: you say that Magic and Bird obviously with their teams,
Speaker 2: but those individuals kind of helped shape the direction of
Speaker 2: the NBA.
Speaker 3: I think so they made it more syllable, they made
Speaker 3: it more competitive. Our team was just as tough as
Speaker 3: Boston on a different kind of way, athletics sort of way.
Speaker 3: And I think the league benefited from that for sure.
Speaker 3: And I ask you guys this, do you think it
Speaker 3: would have worked? Have had Magic went to Bossie and
Speaker 3: Larry went to La.
Speaker 4: No, no why because it's just just a demographic and
Speaker 4: how it was. Magic came to La where he was
Speaker 4: welcome with he could be him.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't. He couldn't have been the Magic he was
Speaker 1: here in Boston.
Speaker 4: They would they would, They would have forced him to
Speaker 4: be somebody else, more like Bird, and that wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 4: They both went to two situations where they can be
Speaker 4: who they who they normally were, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: And it was it was the best fit for both
Speaker 4: of them. I don't think nobody else besides Michael and
Speaker 4: Chicago went to a team where Peter and also Tim
Speaker 4: Duncan them four guys. They went to the perfect situation
Speaker 4: for them. And I think Magic and Bird said it off.
Speaker 2: And I think I'll add something to that style of play.
Speaker 2: You're a Magic style of play. Well, he couldn't. He
Speaker 2: couldn't get McHale and Perish and Walton at time, those
Speaker 2: guys to be running up and down the court the
Speaker 2: way he got. You guys are run up and down
Speaker 2: the court. So I don't I don't think it could
Speaker 2: have worked.
Speaker 3: That's why I say people asked me. I said, you
Speaker 3: know what, there is a basketball god because they make
Speaker 3: things happen, they make things round them, they make things right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you know what. That was right. That
Speaker 1: was right, and the.
Speaker 3: NBA needed that at that time. They needed two young
Speaker 3: people to come in and just show what the fundamentals.
Speaker 1: Of basketball was about.
Speaker 3: That's why I say Magic made passing fun. He made
Speaker 3: smiling fun. He made getting ready before the game. You
Speaker 3: know before I heard that Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor
Speaker 3: and what was a smoker? And you went into the Lakers'
Speaker 3: locker room before everybody's smoking. They're just sitting there, not
Speaker 3: doing anything. You imagine smoking before a fucking game.
Speaker 1: Crette still but just still still. Yeah, So I couldn't
Speaker 1: hate cigarette and drinking. I heard some of the guys
Speaker 1: would have a beer before the game. So that's just hydration.
Speaker 3: So for the Lakers, in our locker room, there was
Speaker 3: music playing. We were walking around talking about the game.
Speaker 1: Who you gonna guard this? And that? Uh, we were
Speaker 1: going over the board.
Speaker 3: Magic was kind of like quizzing people and we could
Speaker 3: okay for the guards, Uh, Dennis Johnson, what we gotta
Speaker 3: do begin gotta stop him, keep him off the boards.
Speaker 3: Magic was doing this all of us work. Magic was
Speaker 3: kind of like and music was playing and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And at that time we didn't have that hard hip
Speaker 3: hop hip hip hop that they have the rap music.
Speaker 3: So we were listening to Frankie Beverley.
Speaker 1: This mooth Yeah, put you in a good move. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh, I mean, they just changed the game and
Speaker 1: it was very very ben and you gotta go out
Speaker 1: there and glide the motherfucker.
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty seven Defensive Player of the Year. But there
Speaker 2: wasn't There was one person that wasn't happy about that, Younes,
Speaker 2: Michael Jordan. Michael Cooper is a great on ball denial,
Speaker 2: but check the other numbers. Check the other stats. Seventy
Speaker 2: eight steels, forty three blocks. This league gives defensive wards
Speaker 2: on reputation and it just HEAs a minute, who wasn't
Speaker 2: happy about this? Michael Jordan, He said something about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is quotes. We're reading quotes. You never knew that.
Speaker 1: No, really, Cooper was locking people up.
Speaker 4: Mike, Like, shit, I might have locking people up too,
Speaker 4: but Coop, God damn, how many times I gonna give
Speaker 4: it to him?
Speaker 1: You know what if that was any other Michael, I
Speaker 1: would say something, but that's the MJ.
Speaker 3: That's the MJA, So I'm gonna leave that alone. But
Speaker 3: you know what, Mike was a force in his own
Speaker 3: but he's born of like stealing. Mike was look, I mean,
Speaker 3: he was a good on ball defender, but Mike would
Speaker 3: play that pass and lanes and do all that.
Speaker 1: Mike played D. He played D. Yeah, yeah, he didn't
Speaker 1: like you giving that. No, Mike wasn't a denier and
Speaker 1: it wasn't all that.
Speaker 3: But you know what, shit, as great as he became
Speaker 3: on that offensive end, he had to conserve some energy.
Speaker 3: You know, I could say, but I won a great
Speaker 3: officer score, so I got to use all my energy
Speaker 3: on that defensive end.
Speaker 1: So interesting.
Speaker 4: After retiring in nineteen ninety, he served as a special
Speaker 4: assistant to Jered West for three years and also as
Speaker 4: an assistant for the Lakers.
Speaker 1: How was that being back on a different side.
Speaker 3: Well, you know what, it was good because the Lakers
Speaker 3: kept a lot of us in the folds so after
Speaker 3: our playing days, and that's what I truly mean. Doctor
Speaker 3: Buss was all about family. And you know, when you retired,
Speaker 3: if you didn't want to be part of the Lakers.
Speaker 3: You can go do whatever you want to, but I
Speaker 3: still wanted to understand what coaching, the behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: player contracts, that kind of stuff, and I wanted to
Speaker 3: be involved with that. So got a chance to do
Speaker 3: that and enjoyed it because I did get the chance
Speaker 3: to really see who doctor Buss was, see who Jerry
Speaker 3: west was, because when they come to the locker room
Speaker 3: and they're happy after you kind of know. But I
Speaker 3: got a chance to see him on the defeats when
Speaker 3: we lost him, and the everyday workings of what the
Speaker 3: Lakers was about. So it was enjoyable for me. I
Speaker 3: really had a wonderful time and got paid pretty good.
Speaker 4: How did you what was the process of recruiting Shack
Speaker 4: and getting them to sign a seven year, one twenty
Speaker 4: million dollar deal.
Speaker 3: Well that was more so Jerry westleym they did that.
Speaker 3: That was kind of like on them big big people.
Speaker 3: They kind of like a couple to let you know
Speaker 3: what's going on, but they go into the big.
Speaker 1: Man's office and close the door.
Speaker 3: But you know what, Shack And that's the great ability
Speaker 3: that Jerry west had is the ability to attract those
Speaker 3: superstars and even magic.
Speaker 1: You want to put him in the loop.
Speaker 3: He was the one that was able and when he
Speaker 3: was the general manager for a little bit with the
Speaker 3: Lakers or he was a president to go get Lebron.
Speaker 1: James. Lebron came here because of magic. So they still
Speaker 1: have that kind of flare.
Speaker 3: But it takes a circuit certain individual to be able
Speaker 3: to talk to a superstar player. And yeah, LA's a
Speaker 3: good selling point, but sometimes it ain't all good behind
Speaker 3: the scenes, and they.
Speaker 1: Were able to sell those type of players.
Speaker 3: And and the fact that Jerry had to wherewithal and
Speaker 3: the eye to see a young man Kobe Bryant and
Speaker 3: noticed this kid could play basketball.
Speaker 4: Just speaking of Kobe Brian, I heard the wax joass
Speaker 4: and the pre draft workout.
Speaker 1: Jack, don't believe everything. To listen, I was forty one
Speaker 1: years old. I was. That's real though, that's real.
Speaker 3: But no, that was probably, other than playing one of
Speaker 3: the hardest things I've ever done a young Kobe. And
Speaker 3: there was some certain things that you know, they wanted
Speaker 3: him to work off pick and rolls, they wanted him
Speaker 3: to get to the elbow, they wanted him to post
Speaker 3: up that I had to kind of like take that away.
Speaker 3: And after that I remember after that workout, I had
Speaker 3: never sweated that hard in my life. And Uh, once
Speaker 3: that that workout was over with Jerry goes U, I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm fine, man, he goes He's our kid, that's our pit.
Speaker 1: And they knew it. They knew it.
Speaker 3: And this kid here, man Kobe could play. He could play.
Speaker 3: And that was the one thing I was very impressed
Speaker 3: with him. Two things. One his strength as a nineteen
Speaker 3: year old, he was strong man. I was working him
Speaker 3: down that low post, and you know, he was not able.
Speaker 3: I couldn't push him out of there too much. But
Speaker 3: then again, he had that athleticism where he jump over
Speaker 3: the top, but he always Jerry said, I need you
Speaker 3: to get to the elbow, and he started him over here,
Speaker 3: and with four or five dribbles, Kobe was able to
Speaker 3: maneuver hisself and get to that shot. He didn't hit
Speaker 3: every one, but he got to the spot. And Jack,
Speaker 3: you know this as offensive player, cause Matt and I
Speaker 3: were defensive players. If you get to your spot, it's
Speaker 3: hard for people to guard you, and Kobe really showed
Speaker 3: that and he exemplified that in that workout.
Speaker 2: Back to back w NBA Championships two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: two thousand and two with the Sparks with least A
Speaker 2: Leslie UH Coach of the Year in two thousand.
Speaker 1: What was that experience like transitioning over to coaching women.
Speaker 3: Well, I had star started hearing about that in ninety seven,
Speaker 3: that the league was coming about, and when it officially
Speaker 3: became here, I always say this, you know, women at
Speaker 3: early ages are always smarter than us. You know, five
Speaker 3: six year olds, they're always ten years you know, if
Speaker 3: they're five or six, they're thinking like a ten or
Speaker 3: eleven year old, so to go and to work out.
Speaker 3: But before I actually coach them, I had a chance
Speaker 3: to go to say no classes up at USC Summer League.
Speaker 3: That's where I saw Tina Thompson, Chryl Swoops, least Or
Speaker 3: Leslie play. So when the chance came that I got
Speaker 3: a chance to coach them, it was great. I say,
Speaker 3: there's two things about women that I really enjoyed coaching.
Speaker 3: One they look better in their uniforms because we sometimes
Speaker 3: look kind of sproungy, you know, big guys like that.
Speaker 3: And two, they smell better when you come to the huddle,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, you know, you come in and
Speaker 3: shot and sweating on you, and you got like that
Speaker 3: and the guys smelling under armed. Women always smell good
Speaker 3: when you come in. But they also can play the
Speaker 3: game because they have to truly use all the fun
Speaker 3: mental aspects of the game because they're below the rim.
Speaker 3: Now they are, but back then they weren't jumping up
Speaker 3: over the rim dunk. And so that was the joy
Speaker 3: that I had with coaching women is you know, we
Speaker 3: would go over plays and you guys know this, there're
Speaker 3: one guy on your team where you can run a place.
Speaker 3: I don't care how many times you run it, somebody's
Speaker 3: always fuck it up. You had a squad though, Yeah,
Speaker 3: women don't do that. You give them things. I could
Speaker 3: run two plays and two times and after that everybody
Speaker 3: got so I was able to move on to the
Speaker 3: next one. Now, these guys, man, you gotta cut this way.
Speaker 3: You know, you're always kind of checking them. But women,
Speaker 3: I enjoyed it. So the one thing that they came
Speaker 3: to be because I was trying to be cord Zone
Speaker 3: with them. And I remember this. I'll never forget this.
Speaker 3: Lisa Leslie came up to me in one of our practices.
Speaker 3: I was like, come on, ladies, you got she said, cool,
Speaker 3: fucking coach us.
Speaker 2: Coach us.
Speaker 3: I said, coach you, she said, cool, I want to learn,
Speaker 3: coach us. That's the only way we're gonna get better.
Speaker 1: Now. I never cursed at them, because you don't have
Speaker 1: to do that with women.
Speaker 3: But I got after them, and when I realized, okay,
Speaker 3: this is how I go, that's.
Speaker 1: When we're able to turn the corner.
Speaker 3: Because you remember, back in ninety seven, Houston Comments was
Speaker 3: the one winning all the chance trust me, Tina Thompson
Speaker 3: and all them. So once I started coaching them and
Speaker 3: we broke through and we were able to beat that
Speaker 3: mighty comic team, then I kind of like, okay, this
Speaker 3: is what they need. And then that's how we did.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I never was a yellow or a cursor,
Speaker 3: but they knew when I was upset, and I made
Speaker 3: my corrections harshly with them and they benefited from that.
Speaker 4: But with all due respect, Lisa Leslie is one of
Speaker 4: the best and beautiful human beings I've ever seen in
Speaker 4: my life. Bro, every time we said the Big Three,
Speaker 4: she's the same person. She's always in great moves. She
Speaker 4: even knows, like if you're going through something through the week,
Speaker 4: she'll pull you through the side and give you some encouragement,
Speaker 4: like she just wanted them people like she's one of
Speaker 4: those people that you always want to see bro because
Speaker 4: she always got a good vibe about them.
Speaker 3: And that's how she's always been. That is how she's
Speaker 3: always been. She was always helping her teammates. When she
Speaker 3: got that job, because he had called and asked me
Speaker 3: about the Big Three jobs, she was like, Coop, should
Speaker 3: I take it? I said, Spoose, that would be perfect
Speaker 3: for you these money because she knows how to communicate
Speaker 3: with men. And but the thing is, she knows the
Speaker 3: game and she's so staturesque and as always look good
Speaker 3: all the new shoes, like she flying And I'm hating
Speaker 3: because she's got more championships than me and the Big Three.
Speaker 1: I hated for that, but then she was also given
Speaker 1: a good team. But yeah, she had Joe, the best
Speaker 1: player the Big these exactly, Joe Johnson.
Speaker 2: But I like, so it took her coming up to you,
Speaker 2: like Coop, coach us to kind of really kind of
Speaker 2: get you in your groove as a coach.
Speaker 1: Yep, And that's you know, she.
Speaker 3: Uh. The one thing I got to give her is
Speaker 3: that every year she had the ability to wear. You know,
Speaker 3: back in the early two thousand, women had to supplement
Speaker 3: their contract. They had to go to Europe, they had
Speaker 3: to go to Russia and they had to go over
Speaker 3: there for most of the year to make eight hundred
Speaker 3: and nine hundred. Well, Lisa, you know the she was
Speaker 3: doing off the course, so she stayed and Jack and Matt.
Speaker 3: Every year she would come up before the season, goes, Coop,
Speaker 3: I want to learn how to do this.
Speaker 1: I want to learn how to do that.
Speaker 3: And then our first, our second championship, she came and
Speaker 3: she goes, Coop, I want to know how that Elijah
Speaker 3: won drill works. You know that move Elijah won would
Speaker 3: go baseline and do that and come back out on
Speaker 3: that side. I said, okay, smooth. So I started watching
Speaker 3: some film on him and she said, Coop, I got it.
Speaker 3: So for four months, from October to February March, every
Speaker 3: day we went over This is when the Lakers were practicing,
Speaker 3: and we so we would get there at six in
Speaker 3: the morning because they would practice at nine, and we'd
Speaker 3: go for an hour. She would go do her weight program,
Speaker 3: lift weights and stuff, and then we'd go over there
Speaker 3: and we worked on that every day, free throw shooting,
Speaker 3: three point shooting. And I was amazed by that because
Speaker 3: not many guys will do that. But here she is
Speaker 3: wanting to be one of the best players in the game.
Speaker 1: Man. And she worked on that.
Speaker 3: And we were play and the Charlotte Hornets in our
Speaker 3: second championship.
Speaker 1: And she got the ball.
Speaker 3: She went baseline, She went like that and one of
Speaker 3: them players jumped way over there.
Speaker 1: She came back out.
Speaker 3: I mean it was exactly like Elijah Walmer came back
Speaker 3: out and hit it. When she hit that shot, I
Speaker 3: stood up and she was pointing at me.
Speaker 1: I told you I could do it.
Speaker 3: I told you, And that there is a passion and
Speaker 3: compassion she has to the game that she now takes
Speaker 3: into her coaching.
Speaker 1: Was Don Sty There was this thing, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: That was Don So Lisa was man, I tell everybody this.
Speaker 3: She and I think Ann Myers possibly could, Nancy possibly could,
Speaker 3: but Lisa Leslie could play in the NBA if she
Speaker 3: could handle the physicality.
Speaker 1: You know. We used to go play up.
Speaker 3: Up at U s CLA used to have open runs
Speaker 3: and we would go play and I would tell the
Speaker 3: guys the first two or three runs because magic was
Speaker 3: rent in the gym and he had his travel team
Speaker 3: up there.
Speaker 1: I said, dudes, just.
Speaker 3: Play her, don't play her physical, just player, and they
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, they still be physical, but they
Speaker 3: wouldn't have a hand checker.
Speaker 1: Man. You at least she used to give it to them.
Speaker 3: Threes pump face, and she wasn't afraid to go inside either.
Speaker 3: And once her teams start winning, then that macho shit
Speaker 3: come back out of you. And okay, I got to
Speaker 3: put some owner and they start banging on her and
Speaker 3: then she's off balance and she would miss her shots.
Speaker 3: But if she could handle the physicality, she could be
Speaker 3: the one woman that could play in this game. But
Speaker 3: the game is just very difficult for women, you know,
Speaker 3: with hand checking and all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people give Angel Rees and Kaylyn
Speaker 2: Clark a credit for the boom of the WNBA this
Speaker 2: past season. Do you see any similarities to their boom
Speaker 2: to the boom the Magic and Bird brought to the
Speaker 2: NBA in the eighties. Yeah, are doing similar I.
Speaker 3: Think this young lady, Caitlyn Clark, you really getting to
Speaker 3: see her explode. I think she's gonna be probably the
Speaker 3: first WNBA player that averaged like about thirty four to
Speaker 3: thirty five the game. I think she got that kind
Speaker 3: of potential. Angel is another player that's just gonna be athlete,
Speaker 3: and I think all players in the w NBA are
Speaker 3: only getting better. That's gonna take that that that lead
Speaker 3: to the next level. I'm waiting for Juju to come
Speaker 3: a young lady at USC have you seen her?
Speaker 1: That what.
Speaker 3: Waiting for her to come into the lead, because he
Speaker 3: is gonna be the explosion. Caitlyn Nember doing a wonderful
Speaker 3: job because you got a lot of the super birds
Speaker 3: and Diana Tarassi, they're getting ready to exit now because
Speaker 3: they're the vet players now and this new blood to
Speaker 3: come in because they understand how to play the game.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what Lisa, Tina Thompson Cynthia Cooper
Speaker 3: did at the two thousand level. They brought that that
Speaker 3: strong NBA kind of play to open the league up.
Speaker 3: But now you get ready to see some people play
Speaker 3: basketball now, and I'm excited to see you.
Speaker 4: It's a couple of young girls that's in the eighth
Speaker 4: ninth grade that's dunking off.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I got a ten year old that's tall,
Speaker 4: so okay, Yeah, yeah, she a problem already.
Speaker 1: Form goat milk. She found a game. I love it
Speaker 1: and see I tell people all the time.
Speaker 3: They told me this because Phil Jackson won't a big
Speaker 3: fan of the WNBA, because I used to. In two
Speaker 3: thousand we were only I think we might be the
Speaker 3: only w NBA team to win a championship the same
Speaker 3: time in the NBA in two thousand and won. The
Speaker 3: Lakers won and we won. So they brought that kind
Speaker 3: of tough basketball. But you get ready to see this
Speaker 3: league go to a whole another level. And people used
Speaker 3: to say back then, all this league will be here
Speaker 3: five years. They'd be here, I'd be And I used
Speaker 3: to tell Phil, Hey, Phil, want to come to the
Speaker 3: Phil couldn't do it, Phil Jackson, I said, Phil, come
Speaker 3: on to a wn big game. Sit you on the court. Goop,
Speaker 3: women can't play basketball, I said, Phil, come on, Oh, Coop,
Speaker 3: I can't go. So I never could change him, but
Speaker 3: I got close. But I did hear him say now
Speaker 3: that women can play the game. So he's changing. But yeah,
Speaker 3: you getting ready to see basketball go to another stage.
Speaker 4: On a serious note, cancer, scare you die? You was
Speaker 4: diagnosed with with tongue cancer in twenty fourteen. How are
Speaker 4: you doing now and did that change your perspective on
Speaker 4: how you look at life?
Speaker 1: Doing good now? Matt, Yes, I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 1: Me glad to hear that because you're my guy. Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, I had a tongue cancer and no one
Speaker 3: in my family has ever had that. And what happened
Speaker 3: is I was traveling, and you know how when you're
Speaker 3: eating food and you bite your tongue a little bit
Speaker 3: and it doesn't heal, and you know, your mouth is
Speaker 3: one of the fastest healing parts of your body.
Speaker 1: But this was just kind of hanging on. It never
Speaker 1: got ugly, didn't turn green. It's just like a little slit.
Speaker 3: And what made me become more aware of it was
Speaker 3: I was drinking water about maybe eight days afterwards, and
Speaker 3: it started burning. I said, you know what, let me
Speaker 3: go to the e and T So I go there,
Speaker 3: and I'm in Atlanta now, and I go to Imbry
Speaker 3: Hospital and I go there and the doctor comes in.
Speaker 3: He looks at it, and the other doctor comes in
Speaker 3: and they look at it on the side, on this
Speaker 3: side of my tongue, and he goes back out, and
Speaker 3: then she comes back in with a trade with a knife.
Speaker 1: So knife and the.
Speaker 3: Thing, and I go, well, what are you gonna do
Speaker 3: with that? She goes, oh, you have cancer. That's tongue cancer.
Speaker 3: We have to do a biopsy. I said, so what
Speaker 3: is it about. Oh we have to cut a piece
Speaker 3: of it. I said, wait a minute. So long story short,
Speaker 3: I ended up leaving, came out here to La went
Speaker 3: to the City of Hope and everything got taken care of.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 3: Found out that it wasn't as bad. But they ended
Speaker 3: up having to take out probably a fingernail on my
Speaker 3: tongue and on this.
Speaker 1: Side here you can't see it.
Speaker 3: I got a scar fifty seven lymph notes they took out,
Speaker 3: and then I ended up having to do radiation and
Speaker 3: that was the worst. But everything, but long story short,
Speaker 3: everything's good and now was just about preventive. I've been
Speaker 3: through the whole thing. And now I go to the
Speaker 3: City Hope probably once every six months, and I go
Speaker 3: to doctor Mugambi out there and uh, she does my
Speaker 3: check up.
Speaker 1: But I'm good.
Speaker 3: And I tell everybody, now, man, that is when something's
Speaker 3: wrong with you. I feel something, you don't feel right,
Speaker 3: go go to the doctor, you know.
Speaker 4: So we both coaching uh, Big Three. Obviously, I'm the
Speaker 4: only back to back champion as a coach. I say again,
Speaker 4: I'm the only.
Speaker 1: Back to back coach as a champion you know out
Speaker 1: there that I did. But now exact that's why I
Speaker 1: hate you, because you know what the thing with you
Speaker 1: is that you don't have great talent. You got players
Speaker 1: that play fucking hard, get dogs, that's it. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you might not win every year, but we're gonna compete. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How was that experience, you know, uh, actually coaching in
Speaker 1: the Big Three and also working with Cbe.
Speaker 3: I love that, man, I mean Cbe. When I first
Speaker 3: even thought about that, I saw Clyde. I was going
Speaker 3: to the airport, walking through the airport in Atlanta, coming
Speaker 3: to LA and I saw Clyde and Clyde was like Coop.
Speaker 3: I said, Clyde, what are you doing all on the
Speaker 3: commission of the Big Three? And I said, well, let's go.
Speaker 3: He say, Coop, have some more teams that they get ready.
Speaker 3: This was early and he said think about it. So
Speaker 3: I remember getting back home about a week later and
Speaker 3: Qube called me, and I love Cube man. I've always
Speaker 3: been a big fan of his. Listen to his music,
Speaker 3: but to see that he was bringing something that was very,
Speaker 3: very unique to basketball. Because if what Cube has started,
Speaker 3: it goes back to the playground and you sue, you
Speaker 3: ain't got five people, You got three of your board,
Speaker 3: two of your boys, and you go to another neighborhood, Hey,
Speaker 3: let's go three on three. And to have that concept
Speaker 3: become a reality I thought was so unique. So now
Speaker 3: he's putting it into play with all these players. So
Speaker 3: being part of the Big Three has been a big
Speaker 3: change in my life because it lets me look at
Speaker 3: basketball a little bit more different because we're always looking
Speaker 3: at it either one on one or five on five. Well,
Speaker 3: three on three gives you a different perspective of it.
Speaker 3: And what I like about it is not a lot
Speaker 3: of coaching and Jack, that's why I hate you, because
Speaker 3: you're a good recruiter and you always go find them
Speaker 3: diming in the rough somewhere. Well, I just kind of like,
Speaker 3: get the biggest guys. And it's not about that about
Speaker 3: height in the Big Three. I mean it helps a
Speaker 3: little bit, but you got having people that can play
Speaker 3: together as a team and work. And I always congratulate
Speaker 3: you a trilogy, right, yep, your insignia.
Speaker 1: It's nice it got the three eyes and the three head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I got Three's.
Speaker 3: Company the championship this year though we did, but it
Speaker 3: was uh yeah, well anyway, another story. But the Big
Speaker 3: Three has been a blessing in disguise and I'm just
Speaker 3: glad to be part of it. And I thought this
Speaker 3: year that they should have had the Olympics and some
Speaker 3: days would have went about you know what, the Big
Speaker 3: Three that we've sent over there should have been from
Speaker 3: the Big Three exactly.
Speaker 4: So you know, three on three is more more played
Speaker 4: around the world, and five on five, one on one anything.
Speaker 3: So you've got a great product, and I think he's
Speaker 3: expanding it. I like the little additions he's got thrown
Speaker 3: in there, bring the fire and things like that. That's
Speaker 3: uh that gives you that old one on one nasty play. Okay,
Speaker 3: bring the fire, fire, Okay, here's the ball, buttherfuck, let's
Speaker 3: go one on one me and you and I love
Speaker 3: that aspect.
Speaker 1: I just wish we could get more.
Speaker 2: Of them too, So j Q, for sure, Well, Coop,
Speaker 2: we appreciate you. We know you're on a clock, so
Speaker 2: we got quick hitters. We're gonna get you out of here.
Speaker 2: So first thing to come to mind.
Speaker 1: Let us know five best perimeter defenders of all.
Speaker 3: Time, Michael Cooper of course, Nate McMillan, McKim, Babe Mutombo,
Speaker 3: Alvin Roberts, An Roberts, and I'm gonna throw Michael Jordan
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, show him in there.
Speaker 2: We've got people in this building that have been petitioning
Speaker 2: to get Lebron James a Laker statue. Will Lebron have
Speaker 2: a Laker statue when it's all said and done, I.
Speaker 1: Think it will.
Speaker 3: I think he's a lead all time lead score, and
Speaker 3: Lebron is doing some things that uh uh, I don't
Speaker 3: think anybody. I think he's gonna play till he's forty one.
Speaker 3: But he's doing things man, that you know a lot
Speaker 3: of kids don't do twenty two twenty three in the league. Man,
Speaker 3: I do think he needs one. He's already broke. The
Speaker 3: only player to play with his son, and how many
Speaker 3: of us would love to have done that, played one
Speaker 3: time his son, didn't play a lot, but just to
Speaker 3: get out there on the court with them and play
Speaker 3: up and down. But yeah, he, uh, Lebron will have
Speaker 3: get a statue.
Speaker 4: Bron knows that these motherfuckers are playing against soft too.
Speaker 4: Say again, Braun came into the league, was a little rough,
Speaker 4: but he know that the game now is super soft,
Speaker 4: so he can cruise through a lot of ship bro.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you because he played in both eras, so
Speaker 4: he know how soft this game is.
Speaker 1: Ray were watching what year was that? Right? Me and
Speaker 1: Ray were watching some throwback ship eleven bro. I slammed Lebron.
Speaker 1: I got footage of it. I slammed him. He tried.
Speaker 1: I grabbed him and slammed him right here. That nigga,
Speaker 1: anybody doing that to him? Trained. He was just floating
Speaker 1: out there, strong, floating. Yeah, was crazy.
Speaker 3: But he played bully ball now. I mean he's straight
Speaker 3: out just bullies them. Man, you get it away? What
Speaker 3: did you what she does to do?
Speaker 1: But look at you, guys. Do you think he could
Speaker 1: have played in our era?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we ain't see nobody six eight, two seventy with
Speaker 4: the forty is vertical.
Speaker 3: We ain't never seen that no time. Well, the closest
Speaker 3: one would be Carl Malone. But he didn't have that
Speaker 3: vert like. He wasn't like yeah no, no, I ran
Speaker 3: that wise, scoring wise. I ran it that for a
Speaker 3: couple of times. And that she's still hurt to think
Speaker 3: about it. He was strong, Yeah, and he could score.
Speaker 1: That's it. Well, that's what I'm saying. I mean that
Speaker 1: the male man.
Speaker 3: That motherfucker was delivering a lot of times. Yeah yeah, rain,
Speaker 3: sleep and snow there. Yeah, but those are some good ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, childhood crush, You got child crush? Who was the
Speaker 1: child crush she passed away? Who was she? Yeah? Her
Speaker 1: name was Melo. Yeah, she was somebody from your neighborhood
Speaker 1: or my neighborhood. Okay, yeah he was that one. She
Speaker 1: was that one.
Speaker 3: Smile, she was that one to my prom Oh really
Speaker 3: and she wouldn't give it up, but yeah, that's always
Speaker 3: the one and give it up.
Speaker 1: That just started so old school and she wouldn't give
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 3: But I was like that sad little puppy used to
Speaker 3: following around the campus and stuff in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: I go buy a house and walk, buy a house
Speaker 2: of person, whatever it takes. Rest in Peace. One album
Speaker 2: that you could play.
Speaker 3: With No Skips, kind of Blue, Miles Davis, Miles David
Speaker 3: and That's Ship All Blue, kind of Blue and Freddy
Speaker 3: free Loader Freddy Freeloader Skip. I got a brand new
Speaker 3: copy it out Freddy Freeload.
Speaker 1: I got to check that out, Freddy freeloaded.
Speaker 4: One guess that you would like to see on All
Speaker 4: the Smoke, but you have to help us get your
Speaker 4: answer on the show.
Speaker 2: Somebody you know, you think would be good on this
Speaker 2: show that we'll talk ship with us, like, hey, Kareem
Speaker 2: said he would do it.
Speaker 1: We just have to go to Orange County. I go whatever.
Speaker 4: I want to pray with him one time, smoke with
Speaker 4: y'all too. I want to pray with him, my muslins,
Speaker 4: I want to pray with it. I just want to
Speaker 4: say I pray with him.
Speaker 1: Kareem will smoke with us too. Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Helps with that. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 4: And I'm cool, huh. I pray and smoking not be crazy.
Speaker 4: But Coop, we can rely on Coop. See I see Cooper,
Speaker 4: and Cooper's a side of dude. There's a lot of
Speaker 4: people that come ahead and say stuff and we never
Speaker 4: see him again. But we can rely on Coop, y'all.
Speaker 2: With Coop for a long time, cool Man came and
Speaker 2: talk to us at you see when we and we
Speaker 2: and Rave Refreshman.
Speaker 1: On another level with him. Yeah, Kareem bringing hard yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with this. I want to learn. I want to
Speaker 1: learn something. He likes things from the past, history, you.
Speaker 4: Know, even doing the George Floyd stuff he's been. I
Speaker 4: want to talk to him about that type of stuff,
Speaker 4: what he thought about all that. You know, I would
Speaker 4: love to talk.
Speaker 1: To Karean well. Coop Man.
Speaker 2: We appreciate you, obviously, love and respect what you meant.
Speaker 2: I mean, I grew up a Laker fan and getting
Speaker 2: a chance to know you early when I was in
Speaker 2: college and throughout, Like Jackson, you've always been a solid
Speaker 2: stand up. We appreciate you, man, So thank you for
Speaker 2: your time today.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: Congratulations on on the on the Hall of Fame. Long
Speaker 2: overdue respect.
Speaker 3: And I would shake Jack's hand, but we stocked some
Speaker 3: unfinished business here, and I know we still got to
Speaker 3: go at each other.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna keep the cords again. Jack gonna get
Speaker 1: part of the league said he's said, fuck Jack. But man,
Speaker 1: that's a wrap.
Speaker 2: Michael Cooper, you can catch us on the DraftKings Network
Speaker 2: in the All the Spoke productions.
Speaker 1: You too. We'll see y'all next week. You mm hmmm
Speaker 1: mm hmmm.