Showtime Laker Chastises Starry New Celtics Addition
Your Los Angeles Lakers have enjoyed an active offseason thus far, re-signing some key pieces in returning guards Austin Reaves and D'Angelo Russell, alongside power forward Rui Hachimura, and adding several intriguing new additions, led by Gabe Vincent and Taurean Prince.
But the Purple and Gold weren't the only ones to make significant moves in efforts to improve their roster across the association.
LA's biggest rival made multiple trades in efforts to helping their team improve on its Eastern Conference Finals finish last season, but the Boston Celtics' main deal for Kristaps Porzingis in the offseason garnered criticism from a former Showtime Laker.
“Who the hell is he? The one thing I’ll say about him is that he looks like a Celtic…That guy there was a flop in Dallas, was a flop in Washington…This guy was brought over from Europe. He is probably here to be a marquee player,” Cooper said.
Michael Cooper's contributions to the Showtime Era of LA involved stingy defense and a perfect teammate to both Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabaar to form one of the league's best teams of all time.
An eight-time All-Defensive selection, Cooper was one of the only guards in NBA history to win the Defensive Player of the Year award in 1987.
With five championships to his name, Cooper's calling card was always his hounding defensive presence that made life miserable for other guards across the league.
Perhaps that's why Cooper feels so strongly about the deal considering the Celtics gave up their own Defensive Player of the Year level guard in Marcus Smart to acquire the services of a player who many consider injury prone or soft.
Despite a great year in Washington, the Wizards wanted to shift towards a rebuild and dealt away Porzingis and Bradley Beal to contending teams with eyes toward the future.
A risky trade for sure, Cooper isn't the only one with doubts about the Celtics' offseason, but only time will tell if such a move can finally push Boston over LA for ring #18 in TD Garden.
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