{"id":257056,"date":"2025-11-02T06:50:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T06:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/257056\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T06:50:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T06:50:16","slug":"former-dpoy-is-glad-he-never-faced-prime-michael-jordan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/257056\/","title":{"rendered":"Former DPOY Is Glad He Never Faced Prime Michael Jordan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> great Michael Cooper<\/a> was one of the finest defenders of his generation, but he has no problem admitting he is glad he never went up against Michael Jordan<\/a> at his absolute best. Cooper spoke about Jordan\u2019s greatness during an interview with DJ Vlad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarry Bird was the toughest player I\u2019ve ever had to defend against,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cBut playing against a young Michael Jordan was kind of easy because I was very athletic and gifted myself. But the one thing I\u2019ll say about Michael, I am so glad, so glad that I never got the chance to play against him as he got older.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause when players really find out and understand this game, Kobe [Bryant], LeBron James, Michael Jordan, when they really, really get the antidote down on how to play this game, that\u2019s when them guys are very difficult to guard,\u201d Cooper continued. \u201cSo, I wasn\u2019t on the team in 90 when the Bulls beat the Lakers, 90-91 championship. I wish I had have been, but you know what?<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael Jordan became a force that you could not deal with,\u201d Cooper added. \u201cAnd I\u2019m glad that we caught him early and caught glimpses of him. But you knew he was going to be a special player, but we didn\u2019t know how special Your Airness was going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone knew Jordan was going to be special, especially after he hit the game-winner for North Carolina in the 1982 NCAA title game against Georgetown. No one could have foreseen, though, that by the time he walked away from the game, he\u2019d be viewed as the greatest player of all time.<\/p>\n

Jordan was a force in the NBA from the get-go after the Chicago Bulls<\/a> selected him with the third pick in the 1984 NBA Draft. He averaged 28.2 points per game on 51.5% shooting from the field in the 1984-85 season, and won Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s Lakers were one of the few teams that did manage to slow down Jordan, though. He averaged just 18 points in two games against them as a rookie.<\/p>\n

Cooper, who made the All-Defensive First Team in 1985, played his part in that. He made eight All-Defensive teams in total in his career and was named Defensive Player of the Year in 1987.<\/p>\n

Boston Celtics<\/a> icon Larry Bird<\/a> once called Cooper the toughest defender he ever faced, and it was rare that you ever saw someone get the better of him at his best. Despite that, the Hall of Famer is glad he didn\u2019t have to go up against an older Jordan.<\/p>\n

Cooper left the NBA after the 1989-90 season and headed overseas to play in Italy. It was right after that campaign that we saw Jordan begin his run of domination in the NBA. He led the Bulls to three-peats from 1991 to 1993 and from 1996 to 1998.<\/p>\n

The Lakers were the first victims of Jordan\u2019s Bulls in the NBA Finals in 1991. He averaged 31.2 points per game in the series, and one wonders how much more difficult Cooper would have made life for him on the court if he were there and at his best.<\/p>\n

Jordan would finish his career with six titles, six Finals MVPs, five MVPs, one DPOY, and 10 scoring titles. Despite LeBron James<\/a>\u2018 best efforts, he remains the most popular pick for the title of greatest of all time today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers great Michael Cooper was one of the finest defenders of his generation, but he has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-257056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}