Michael Cooper’s post-Los Angeles Lakers career:
Michael Cooper was the partner in crime for Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar more times than anybody else. In fact, those three rank among the top trios with most playoff wins.
Following his retirement, Coop experienced both sides of the basketball backstage, working three years as Special Assistant General Manager to Jerry West and then conducting a long and prolific career as a coach in LA.
In his brief stint as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in 1994, Magic Johnson hired his former teammate as an assistant, who remained in that role until 1997, despite the change in coaching.
In 1999 he moved to the newborn WNBA, assigned to an Assistant Coach role for the Lakers’ sister team, the Los Angeles Sparks, which at the time was owned by the Buss family. The following season he became the Sparks’ Head Coach, winning the Coach of the Year award. He led the team to two consecutive championships in 2001 and 2002, but they failed to three-peat.
He would later return to the NBA, and then move to D-League and WNBA again, but never to LA again.