{"id":90731,"date":"2024-08-15T17:20:08","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T21:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=90731"},"modified":"2024-08-15T17:22:13","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T21:22:13","slug":"los-angeles-lakers-retiring-5x-champions-jersey-number-michael-cooper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/15\/los-angeles-lakers-retiring-5x-champions-jersey-number-michael-cooper\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers Retiring 5x Champion&#8217;s Jersey Number"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/02\/20\/michael-cooper-named-finalist-for-basketball-hall-of-fame\/\" target=\"_self\">2024 Basketball Hall of Fame<\/a> inductee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/coopemi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Cooper<\/a> spent his entire 12-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers. Alongside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnsma02.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Magic Johnson<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/abdulka01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/a>, Cooper helped add five championships to the Lakers organization. Now, 34 years after his final game with the Lakers, Cooper will get his jersey number retired.<\/p>\n<p>In a post on the Lakers&#8217; official X account, the team announced they will retire Cooper&#8217;s No. 21 jersey on January 13, 2025.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">5x Champion. Defensive specialist. Showtime Coooooop.<\/p>\n<p>1\/13\/25 &#8211; We raise Michael Cooper\u2019s jersey into the rafters amongst the Laker greats. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KbSwza9pHu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/KbSwza9pHu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Lakers\/status\/1824168806534746287?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 15, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>With the Lakers, Cooper appeared in 873 games. In his career, the California native averaged 8.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and 1.2 steals per game. However, Cooper truly made his presence felt on the defensive side of the ball. Cooper is an eight-time All-Defensive Team selection, and he finished top-five in Defensive Player of the Year voting five times. This includes the former Laker winning the award in 1987. Additionally, Cooper finished top-25 in MVP voting twice.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Cooper was an assistant coach for the Lakers from 1994 to 1996.<\/p>\n<h2>Los Angeles Lakers Retiring 5x Champion&#8217;s Jersey Number<\/h2>\n<h3>Michael Cooper Joins Excellent Company With Jersey Retirement<\/h3>\n<p>The Lakers are arguably the greatest franchise in NBA history. Their 17 championships are second-most in the league behind the 18-time champion <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/18\/the-boston-celtics-win-the-2024-nba-finals-champions\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Celtics<\/a>. Additionally, countless NBA greats made their presence felt with the Lakers. As such, the team has retired 13 jersey numbers to honor the legends who helped make the Lakers the franchise they are today.\u00a0This includes legends like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bryanko01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kobe Bryant<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chambwi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wilt Chamberlain<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bayloel01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elgin Baylor<\/a>, Cooper&#8217;s teammates Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/o\/onealsh01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shaquille O&#8217;Neal<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/westje01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jerry West<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Former Lakers Champion Campaigned for Cooper&#8217;s Jersey Retirement<\/h3>\n<p>In 2023, seven-time NBA champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/horryro01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Horry<\/a> spoke about Cooper. Horry said he believed the &#8220;Laker legend&#8221; deserved to get <a href=\"https:\/\/fadeawayworld.net\/robert-horry-thinks-it-is-unfair-if-the-lakers-retire-lebron-james-jersey-and-not-retire-michael-coopers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his jersey number retired<\/a> by the team.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI base everything off Michael Cooper. You know, it is just so hard for me when you retire a guy\u2019s number and you don\u2019t retire Michael Cooper\u2019s number. And it is just, to me, it don\u2019t\u2026nobody should go before him. You know, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, help win championships. He always guarded the people that Magic couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Additionally, Horry made it clear that the Lakers should retire Cooper&#8217;s jersey number before current star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>&#8216;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt\u2019s just so many things that, you know, and that goes to show you have people in the league and NBA and across. They don\u2019t appreciate defense unless you\u2019re <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wallabe01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ben Wallace<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rodmade01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-15_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dennis Rodman<\/a>. And I just think that if you retire LeBron\u2019s jersey, you gotta retire Michael Cooper\u2019s \u2018cause he\u2019s just a Laker legend to me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So far, Horry has not made a public comment about the recent news. However, it is fair to assume he is happy with the decision.<\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word on Michael Cooper<\/h3>\n<p>Cooper was a fantastic player in his prime. Additionally, he was one of the Lakers&#8217; most important pieces to their dynasty in the 1980s. Retiring his jersey number is a no-brainer for the Lakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2024 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Michael Cooper spent his entire 12-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers. Alongside Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Cooper helped add five championships to the Lakers organization. Now, 34 years after his final game with the Lakers, Cooper will get his jersey number retired. In a post on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":88825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1608,2,62,3],"tags":[2048,2049,2047,551,38,755,4668,2226,261,2014],"class_list":["post-90731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lakers","category-basketball","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","tag-elgin-baylor","tag-jerry-west","tag-kareem-abdul-jabbar","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-lebron-james","tag-magic-johnson","tag-michael-cooper","tag-robert-horry","tag-shaquille-oneal","tag-wilt-chamberlain"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}