Michael Cooper: "My relationship with him goes very deep. You know, after I retired, I had alcohol and substance abuse issues. And Jerry—he was the first one to pull me to the side. He was like, ‘Coop, what’s going on?’ And he understood it. So I went and spent 45 days at John Lucas’s rehab facility down in Houston—probably one of the best things I ever did to turn my life around. Sometimes we get led astray by different things, and Jerry West was able to see that in me. He caught it early before my issues became even bigger—before I couldn’t handle them." "So I went down there, took care of it, came back, and I still had a job. He was still rooting for me. And until the day he died, I spoke to him. A week before he passed away, we talked. Jerry and I were very, very close. Rest in peace—he’s going to be missed. But again, we try to live our lives to imitate who he was, and I think a lot of us do that."

Source: YouTube

More on this storyline

Jorge Sierra: Stephen Curry passed Allen Iverson in points (No. 28 now) and Kobe Bryant in assists last night (No. 35). Also: Mike Conley is Top 30 all-time in assists after moving ahead of Reggie Theus and John Lucas. -via Bluesky / January 14, 2025

Vernon Maxwell: "Kobe Bryant was the real deal even before he got to the league. I remember when John Lucas invited him to our practices in Philly. He was just a high school senior, but man, he was killing us. I couldn’t stop him, and I’m a top-tier defender. This kid was dropping buckets on everybody, smooth as hell. I told him, ‘You don’t need college. You’re ready now. Bring your ass to the league.’ He had that drive, that hunger. You could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t just playing; he was out there proving a point. I remember thinking, ‘This dude’s gonna be something special.’ And he was. Even back then, he was shaking his head, smiling, like, ‘Yeah, this is too easy.’ That’s how confident he was. Nobody could touch him, not even us pros." -via YouTube / December 18, 2024

Michael Cooper on Jack Nicholson: "Jack was so down to Earth because we used to go to 'On the Rocks', which is above 'The Roxy' in Hollywood, and Jack would be in there and we used to party with him, drinking and it was an intimate setting nightclub so we'd all be up in there and just to hear some of the stories… But again you watched 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', you watched him in many other movies and I couldn't believe that this guy was standing next to me, but so knowledgeable of a fan, knew the game inside and out. My one great memory of Jack is that in 1984 and obviously not being able to beat the Celtics that year, we go there and the Celtics beat us but Jack said 'You know? F-ck y'all I’ll moon them'. He pulled his pants down and mooned the fans on our way out. For us, that was our sign that 'you know what? The Celtics will never beat us again’, and then we came back in '85 and beat them. Jack was our unspoken leader." -via YouTube / February 7, 2025

Michael Cooper: But you know, people ask me all the time, ‘Who’s the hardest player?’ And I always say him, because I played against Michael Jordan, George Gervin, Andrew Toney—those guys. When they passed the ball, they had a tendency to take a break for a second. Larry never was going to take a break. Larry was going to go get an offensive rebound, he was going to go set a back pick—he was going to do something to impact that possession. That’s why he was the hardest." -via YouTube / February 7, 2025

Michael Cooper: "You know what? The Forum Club was a different place. It was almost like Studio 54 in New York at the time, and Dr. Buss wanted that. He paraded women that came to the game around, and then he’d take his entourage and go sit up by the flag. That was part of LA." "The only ones that really partook in that a lot—well, I was married. Byron Scott was married. Norm Nixon and Magic Johnson were the only single guys, so we kind of lived vicariously through them. They were at the Playboy Mansion or wherever they were at, and then they’d come back. We’d all be sitting on the bus the next day like, ‘Yo, what happened? What happened?’ So we were hearing all the stories." -via YouTube / February 7, 2025

This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Michael Cooper on Jerry West: 'When I had alcohol and substance abuse issues, he was the first one to pull me to the side''