Lakers defensive great Michael Cooper elected to Hall of Fame.

CNS (LOS ANGELES) — The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame announced on Saturday that Michael Cooper, who led the Los Angeles Sparks to two WNBA Championships after helping the Lakers to five NBA championships during the 1980s “Showtime” period, had been inducted into the hall.

The 67-year-old Cooper, who was born in Los Angeles, attended Pasadena High School and Pasadena City College before spending 1976–1978 in New Mexico. In the third round of the 1978 NBA draft, the Lakers selected him, and he spent his whole 12-year NBA career with them.

The gaunt Cooper was renowned for his relentless defence, typically drawing the most difficult scorer on the other team. During their three NBA Finals encounters, Cooper had particularly noteworthy bouts with Boston Celtics great Larry Bird. Bird famously remarked that Cooper was the toughest defender he had ever faced.

The 6-foot-7-inch Cooper earned the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award in 1987 and was selected five times to the NBA’s all-defensive first team. In addition, he possessed exceptional proficiency in two aspects of the contemporary NBA game: the alley-oop dunk and the three-point shot.

Following his playing career, Cooper joined the Sparks as head coach in November 1999 and guided the group to back-to-back WNBA titles in 2001 and 2002.

He led the NBA D-League’s Albuquerque Thunderbirds to a title in 2006 while serving as their coach from 2005 to 2007 before going back to coach the Sparks from 2007 to 2009. Later on, he served as head coach of the Atlanta Dream of the WNBA and the women’s basketball team at USC.

Magic Johnson, the Hall of Famer from the Lakers teams of the 1980s, who was Cooper’s closest friend, revealed the news of his buddy’s selection on Thursday