Cooper Can’t Stand Having to Sit Out While Lakers Roll

Michael Cooper gimped into the Laker locker room Monday morning, brothers and sisters, stood tall, and threw away his crutches!

Halle lu jah!

When Wanda Cooper heard about her husband doing that, she rolled her eyes and said something like, “He did? Shoot. I’ll have to go get ‘em back.”

Michael Cooper has this theatrical flair. He will dive into the stands in pursuit of a basketball, even during layup drills. He also has this desperate need to play basketball, which is why he threw away his crutches even though doctors say he won’t be able to play for another week or so because of a sprained left ankle that knocked him out of the last two games.

Sitting doesn’t sit well with him. Cooper is what you might call high-strung. If he were a guitar, only dogs would hear the music.

The Laker coaches suspected Cooper might create a scene, demanding to play, so Sunday they placed him under protective custody, otherwise known as the NBA’s injured list. He can throw away all the crutches he wants and he still can’t play the next four games, not without a pardon from the governor.

How has Cooper been taking the layoff? Not in stride, so to speak.

“He’s been evil,” Wanda said. “Very miserable. I threw him out of the house this morning.”

Cooper confirms the story. “She even took my keys,” he said while having his ankle treated by Laker trainer Gary Vitti. Why the big deal over a sprained ankle? Because the Lakers are on a monumental roll, which Cooper wants to be part of. The intensity that makes Cooper the league’s most valuable sixth man, and last season’s NBA defensive player of the year, makes him a poor spectator.

“I can’t hit anybody now, that’s the hard part,” Cooper said.

He meant to say “hand check,” of course.

Cooper feels guilty about sitting out games.

“I feel like I’m cheating Dr. (Jerry) Buss out of his money,” Cooper said in apparent sincerity.

If Cooper is cheating the owner out of his money, Buss can only hold on for about 700,000 more games of Cooper draining the Forum finances.

The last time Cooper sat out with an injury was in 1982, 455 games ago.

“Look,” Buss will soon tell Cooper, “if you’re going to demand a week off every six seasons, we’re going to have to start looking around for some help.”

Sunday morning, before he heard about being placed on the disabled list, Cooper thought about removing his removable cast and giving the ankle a try against the Pistons and Isiah Thomas. It would have been ugly. Playing against healthy Lakers, Isiah scored 42 points. Against a one-legged man, Thomas would’ve gone off like a Roman candle.

“It (trying to play) flashed across my mind but it didn’t stick,” Cooper said, glumly.

It eats at Cooper that he has already missed two nationally televised CBS Sunday games, sitting out a Seattle game because of a suspension for fighting, and then missing Sunday’s Piston game.

“That hurts my chances of being defensive player of the year again,” Cooper said. “I want to be the first player ever to win that award back-to-back.”

That award dates back all the way to 1983. And Sidney Moncrief won it the first two times, but don’t tell Cooper. Why mess with a man’s crusade?

Cooper also feels bad about Magic Johnson and Byron Scott being forced to play extra minutes in his absence. Those are his minutes.

For Cooper, the days drag. Fortunately, in this time of crisis, something very important and meaningful has come into Cooper’s life. A satellite TV dish.

“I spend all my time watching games,” Cooper said. “We don’t even go out anymore. Wanda tells me to marry the dish.”

Not that Michael, barricaded in his upstairs TV room, ignores Wanda.

“He thinks he’s in a hotel, he’s supposed to get room service,” Wanda said.

Now don’t get them wrong. Michael and Wanda really are in love. They like to kid.

Michael is also in love with the satellite dish. He watches Laker reruns, other NBA games, college games, even Continental Basketball Assn. games.

“If it’s showin’, I’m seein’ it,” Cooper said. “I’m a basketball enthusiast.”

Basketball enthusiast. That term will fit nicely on Cooper’s tombstone some day. A Laker spokesman will announce the death and add, “Cooper is expected to miss four games.”

As Cooper’s ankle was being nursed back to health Monday morning, the other Lakers began arriving. Pat Riley had canceled practice, but he did schedule a team meeting so the coaching staff could distribute its periodic report cards on individual player performance. Presumably, most of the Lakers passed.

The players, trickling into the trainer’s room for shoes and gum and tape, greeted Cooper, and his eyes lit up, his spirits brightened.

“Gee, they haven’t forgotten ol’ Coop,” he seemed to be thinking.

Cooper raised himself up on the trainer’s table and said, “I’m gonna be back in about three days.”

This time, Gary Vitti rolled his eyes.

Halle lu jah.