Cooper will be back with Sparks
There is more than one Staples Center dweller capable of rehiring a coach with a championship-littered past who has hopes of adding more.
Two years after Phil Jackson returned to coach the Lakers, the Sparks are on the verge of rehiring Michael Cooper, who led the team to WNBA championships in 2001 and 2002.
“There’s a good chance of it happening soon and it feels damn good to be reconnecting with L.A.,” Cooper said after his Albuquerque Thunderbirds lost, 121-104, to the Los Angeles D-Fenders in an NBADL game.
An official announcement that Cooper has signed a multi-year deal is expected today.
Cooper, 50, guided the Sparks to four Western Conference regular-season titles and three Western Conference playoff championships along with the titles. In 2000, 2001 and 2002, the Sparks had the league’s best regular-season record.
“We’re really excited because he brought the Sparks their first championships,” Sparks co-owner Kathy Goodman said Tuesday night in Cleveland, where she attended the championship game of the NCAA women’s tournament. “He’s a coach that totally respects the women’s game in its own right and he’s committed to being with the team during the season and the off-season.”
Goodman said that commitment was one of the sticking points in not trying to lure back former coach Joe “Jellybean” Bryant.
Bryant, the father of Lakers star Kobe Bryant, had coached the Sparks since August 2005 when the team fired Henry Bibby. He will continue coaching the Tokyo Apache in the Japanese BJ League.
“One of our mandates when we bought the Sparks was to establish the league year-round,” Goodman said. “The WNBA’s always at a disadvantage because our players go and play overseas and we don’t have a lot of presence in the off-season. And so having Cooper be there in the off-season, it’s a presence in L.A.”
Cooper coached the Thunderbirds to the NBADL championship last year. He left the Sparks in the middle of the 2004 season to become an assistant coach with the Denver Nuggets and became the interim head coach for a brief tenure during the 2005-06 season.
Cooper played at Pasadena High and collegiately at New Mexico. He was selected by the Lakers in the third round of the 1978 draft and developed into one of the league’s top defensive players during the team’s Showtime era. He played his entire 12-year NBA career with the Lakers.
He inherits a team that lost in the Western Conference finals last season and is also losing three-time most valuable player, Lisa Leslie, who is sitting out the season while pregnant. The Sparks open their 11th season May 22 against the Chicago Sky at Chicago.
“Some may see it as taking a step down in my coaching career, but it gives me a chance to still be a head coach,” Cooper said.
Abrams reported from Los Angeles, Crowe reported from Cleveland.
jerome.crowe@latimes.com
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Cooper’s record
Michael Cooper’s record during his first stint with the Sparks:
*--* Year W L Pct. Pos. Result 2000 28 4 875 1st Lost in conference finals 2001 28 4 875 1st Won championship 2002 25 7 781 1st Won championship 2003 24 10 706 1st Lost in league finals 2004 14 6 700 -- Resigned in midseason
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