#ICYMI - Game Changer – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Skyhook

Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice explore the physics of the legendary Skyhook with the help of Neil deGrasse Tyson and three superstars from the LA Lakers’ “Showtime” dynasty: Jamaal Wilkes, Michael Cooper, and the NBA’s all-time point scorer, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on: TuneIn: http://www.tunein.com/playingwithscience Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360?mt=2 Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly

• 0:12Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice

• 0:13Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science Yes, indeed. Today's show is a bit different because we're featuring the first of our game changer series. A series where we take a single athlete and examine how they straight up broke the game and rebuilt it so suit their own style.

• 0:31Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so to tip us off, we have chosen a man who nearly 30 years after he retired is still the NBA's leading all-time point scorer. A man who owns six, count them, six NBA titles and acting career that boasts a Bruce Lee movie as well as the Airplane movie. What hasn't this man done?

• 0:52Gary O'Reilly?

  We're going to find out, but there's not much he hasn't done. A player who invented his own shot, the skyhook. Have we worked it out yet? For such an offensive weapon, it might surprise you to know, he ranks, still ranks, third in the NBA's all-time records for not just rebounds, but blocks.

• 1:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, the man who changed the game of basketball. We're talking none other than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

• 1:17Gary O'Reilly?

  And to help us take a trip down memory lane, we asked Neil deGrasse Tyson to hook up with the man himself while we rap with former Lakers superstars and teammates Michael Cooper and Jamal Wilk.

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Chuck, let's do it. We need to do this. And first, to kick things off, joining us by video call, we are super excited to have Jamal Wilk, better known as Silk. What's up, Jamal?

• 1:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Hey Chuck, how you doing? Hey Gary, it's a pleasure to be with you guys today. Jamal, the pleasure is us. Just to talk to any of the guys who were around that organisation at that time is such a thrill for us because you just reinvented the game and let alone what Kareem did on his own.

• 2:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I mean, when you look at the dynasty that you guys had and the type of talent that was bought on to this NBA Team you look at, just look at you. I mean, come on, Rookie of the Year, right? If I remember, three-time, three-time NBA All-Star, if I remember. Nicknamed Silk because we know you had the stroke. I mean, this, this team was always just chock-full of superstars. All of you, I mean, no matter where you look. So, you know, before we, before we get into how it is to play as a superstar on a team of superstars, you know, we're talking about Jamal, so let's take, we're talking about,

• 2:46Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, Jamal, we're talking about Kareem. We're all talking about Jamal. But we're also talking about Jamal. And a little bit, a little bit later, we're gonna talk to Michael Cooper, who I'm sure you are familiar with. But let's take a look at quintessential Kareem clip, so that we can see exactly what we're talking about when we say how he changed the game of basketball with the skyhook.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Let's do it. Magic the distance gives to Kareem, slam. Don't. Hey, save. Still saved it. Throws it to Kareem, forty feet out. Play, what an athlete he is. Kareem is this dribble. I'll say, nobody else could've kept their balance. Nobody could've caught up with it. Inside it goes to Kareem against Perry. Back to Cooper. Back to Kareem. Swing left, shoot right from twelve. It's good. Kareem has got eleven. Nestled in that. Tickle the twine. Forty-eight to forty-eight. Clark's got the ball. Fifty to forty-eight, the Lakers trail it. Michael Cooper with the ball. Cooper dribbling at the top of the key. Magic getting a long rest. Ball into Kareem. Gonna swing left again and shoot right from thirteen.

• 3:45Chuck Nice?

  Boom, and there it is again.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  And Perry says, come on, ease up, big fella.

• 3:48Chuck Nice?

  And there he says, ease up. So, you know, the thing about the skyhook, and you could hear it from the announcers' POV, it's the same move, but it just seems to be indefensible. Swing left, move right, up, boom. Can you, can you talk about what it, what it was like to witness somebody who's, has an indefensible shot?

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Well, first of all, when you talk about Kareem, he was a perfectionist. And I tell people, had he been six feet tall, he'd have been a great basketball player. He was just so fundamentally sound at everything he did, and he could bring a level of concentration that was just otherworldly. But the skyhook in particular, it's the most.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  devastating offensive weapon in any sport that I've ever seen.

• 4:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  And, and it was a very simple shot, but he, he mastered it. It was just, just an amazing experience to see that shot day in and day out. Not just the games, but practices too. I mean, he, he practiced with, with all of us. He didn't take off practice. He, he was just a, a leader by example. He wasn't the most talkative individual then, back then, but he always led with his example. It was just a, a sheer delight to play with him.

• 5:16Chuck Nice?

  So Neil deGrasse Tyson actually caught up with Kareem recently to chat about the legendary skyhook and we have a clip of their conversation. So let's take a, take a listen.

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What percent of your 38,000 points were skyhook points, would you guess?

• 5:31Speaker 05

  I'd say three quarters.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three quarters?

• 5:33Speaker 05

  Yeah. But you know, I, I learned, everything I learned, you know, had to do with learning the mechanics of the shot and shooting a bow and arrow. Cause you figure out what the drop is all about, you know, what the arc is all about. And once you get, got that figured out, you can, you become accurate. You're a marksman at that point.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're a basketball marksman?

• 6:01Speaker 05

  You have to be. Well, if you're going to be successful, you know. And I, I led the league in field goal percentage a number of years. I think that was really my success to, you know, I had a successful shot that they couldn't block. That's what enabled me to endure.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's intriguing about this hook shot, I think Bill Bradley famously was quoted saying that in the hook shot, cause he also did the hook shot, the hook shot, your eyes are not on the ball or on your hand or anywhere near your arm.

• 6:32Speaker 05

  No.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that there's a sense of where the basket is relative to the ball. If you have enough experience on the court. So you don't actually need to look at where the basket is. And you must agree with that because you were successful in the hook shot.

• 6:47Speaker 05

  You don't have to know where the ball is. You gotta keep your eye on the basket, but you don't have to have your eye on the ball.

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. But that requires some musculoskeletal connectivity.

• 6:58Speaker 05

  Yes. That's why you practice.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  That's the quote of the interview.

• 7:04Chuck Nice?

  That's why you practice. So Jamal. That just bears out what Jamal was saying. I know, you said that, so is, is, was everybody aware of, you know, Kareem's work ethic? Because I have to tell you, I remember watching you guys play and because it was Showtime, everybody had such an emphasis on the fact that there were all these big personalities, these big superstars on the court. Nobody, you didn't hear anybody talking about the practice. You didn't hear anybody talking about the work ethic. You didn't hear anybody, like when you talk, when they talk about LeBron James today,

• 7:45Chuck Nice?

  they always talk about how hard he practices and how much he's trying to drive the team. You heard that a lot about Michael Jordan. Oh, this guy, he practices his work ethic, his work ethic. When, and you guys were a dynasty and all they talked about was like, oh, the show is in town. It almost made it seem like you guys just walked out on the court and it just happened like that. Talk to me about like your routine as a team to get to that place because I'm sure there's a lot of hard work involved.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Oh, you're, you're absolutely right Chuck and, and I couldn't agree with you more. They all talk about the work LeBron and Michael Jordan, but no one talks about that with Kareem. And, you know, I'm, it may have to do with the fact that he's seven feet tall. It seems like people just assume you're automatically good in basketball because you're tall. And that's why I say that even if he were six feet, he'd have been a, he'd have been a top, top basketball player. I mean, this guy was just really, really good at everything and, and, and I agree, I couldn't agree with you more Chuck. No one ever said that about Showtime. No, no one ever talked about how we're, how hard we work. I mean, I remember when we played the Celtics.

• 9:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  They were Luke Tyler guys.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  They were.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  And we were Hollywood.

• 9:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  And, uh, but we worked hard, uh, and we, our practices were as competitive as our games and, uh, I mean Kareem did not take practices off. He, he, he worked just as hard as, as all of us did and, uh, Uh, and it's, it's unfortunate that that gets overlooked and, and, and it's all about the glitz and the glamour, but not about, uh, the preparation, the planning and the effort, the hard work that, that we all put into it, including Kareem.

• 9:36Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, let's play a little bit of fantasy, fantasy basketball. How would the eighties Lakers fare in the NBA today with that pound for pound talent? Come on, you must have been asked this question before. Look at that smiling face. Look at that face.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  Okay, Gary, I'm gonna ask you a soccer question.

• 9:54Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, by all means. Cause I, there isn't a day goes by when I don't get better.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  I know, I know, I know. I understand that, Gary, I got that. Uh, you know, uh, it's hard to compare different eras.

• 10:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  And, and, and, and, and, and we all do it and the fans, and the media loves it and it drives interest in the game. I get that, but I just have to say it's very difficult, but we would have fared very well. I mean, today, number, we had everything.

• 10:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  We had the ultimate inside game and we had the outside game. Now, we weren't shooting three pointers back then like they do today, only because it wasn't in vogue. Had it been in vogue, we'd have been doing it too. So I, you know, I don't want to make predictions. I think we have some great teams today, some great players today, but we would have held our own. We'd have done very well.

• 10:48Chuck Nice?

  It's funny to hear you say it wasn't in vogue to shoot three pointers back then because, uh, during the time that you guys were playing and Magic was running the point. And I remember all the kids who played basketball wanted to be like Magic. And so it was all about ball handling. It was all about no look passing. It was all about how fancy and how good I could look, uh, getting the ball on a feed or faking a feed and going to the hole like, so it's funny how.

• 11:15Gary O'Reilly?

  What young guys do, they replicate.

• 11:16Chuck Nice?

  That, that the game changes based on who the stars of the game are at that time. And then the next generation emulating those stars, they actually change the game based on what they have seen.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, you're absolutely correct. It is interesting. Yeah, Magic was a game changer too. And, you know, Magic was just an incredible freak of nature, you know, being six foot nine, point guard, handling the ball the way he did, seeing the floor the way he did. And those no look passes, before he came, you frowned down upon him. But he delivered them consistently that they became part of the game. And I think we're seeing that today with the Warriors and Steph Curry and the step back and going left and right. But getting back to Kareem, and your point Chuck about how hard LeBron and Michael were, it really

• 12:11Speaker 03

  is unfortunate that the hard work he put in gets overlooked with the skyhook, which is just a thing of beauty to watch. Whether you like basketball or not, it's a beautiful thing to watch.

• 12:23Chuck Nice?

  And speaking of the skyhook being a thing of beauty, we have another clip where Neil deGrasse Tyson is talking to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and they kind of break down the physics of the skyhook. And so it's a thing of beauty not only to look at, but it's a thing of beauty in the world of physics too. Let's check it out.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I look at a basketball game, part of me sees it as a physicist does. So there's a ball, it's round, there's a hoop, which is bigger than the ball. And there are all manners of shots that come at it from different angles, different trajectories. And your skyhook, your hand at fully extended, has got to be like eight or nine feet in the air. I mean, did they measure this?

• 13:04Speaker 05

  When I shot the skyhook, my hand was about between 10 feet and 11 feet in the air.

• 13:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're also jumping.

• 13:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm also jumping.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now the rim is 10 feet up.

• 13:17Speaker 05

  Exactly 10 feet.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the ball is basically going down. So the physics of this, of course, is the more the ball can just go down. The greater

• 13:29Speaker 05

  Chance it has.

• 13:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chance it has for going in.

• 13:31Speaker 05

  Right, so you want to, you want to shoot a high arcing shot that drops.

• 13:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That drops.

• 13:37Speaker 05

  You don't want to just get it to crawl over.

• 13:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if it just crawls over, then there's, the cross section changes.

• 13:43Speaker 05

  Much smaller.

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, I don't, people know that, so. I can take this circle and angle it, the cross section to you is smaller now.

• 13:51Speaker 05

  Right, so you want to get, your shot should have a high arc and come straight down.

• 13:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you thinking about that physics when you were taking that shot? Because you had your physics class.

• 14:02Speaker 05

  I understood what I wanted to do, so I had all the ballistics and everything worked out.

• 14:09Gary O'Reilly?

  You see Jamal, did he, did you ever get the feeling that Kareem just had everything under control?

• 14:16Speaker 03

  When I saw the skyhook, I mean, I, I just marveled. I would think of Picasso, I would think of.

• 14:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  Alright, I would think of John Coltrane, I would think of Mahendrick, I would think of. That's the only way I could think of it, because it was, you know, it was so uh, separate and apart from what anyone else was doing at that time, especially the centers. And no one's done it since, and I, I can't believe that, you know, all these seven footers now want to shoot three pointers. No one wants to shoot a skyhook anymore, so, uh, uh, it, it was just. Then, even then, watching it, I knew, and I think most of us had an idea that, you know, this just wasn't a shot, this was, you know, art, music on the highest level.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  Uh, and it was just, just, uh, you know, I mean, I already said it, a thing of beauty, I can't express it any other way.

• 15:11Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm happy with that.

• 15:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 15:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely.

• 15:14Chuck Nice?

  I can't, I, I can't think of a better compliment than to call somebody, what somebody does, uh, Coltrane.

• 15:19Gary O'Reilly?

  A thing of beauty.

• 15:20Chuck Nice?

  It doesn't get any better than that.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right, that's right, Chuck.

• 15:23Chuck Nice?

  It does not get any better than that. So what we're gonna do right now is take a, a quick break, and Jamal, you can stand by with us, right?

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Uh, fantastic. So look, guys, we got more Jamal Wilks coming your way, more Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, more skyhook, more everything, stay tuned.

• 15:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back, I'm Gary O'Reilly. What's up guys? And we are playing with science. Let's get straight to our next clip. The hook shot. Yes, the famous hook shot, made famous by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But what about the hook shot today? Let's find out what the big man has to say.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For me, the hook shot is unjustifiably accurate. I took hook shots my whole life and I was pretty good at it. Metallock Lemon and the Globetrotters, Harlem Globetrotters. That was, he'd go the other end of the court and just throw the thing up. Swish. So, why doesn't anyone shoot it anymore?

• 16:26Speaker 05

  I think the hook shot has fallen out of favour because all the kids that are learning how to play the game want to shoot three pointers. They don't want the ugly two-point shot down there in the paint getting balked. They want to look real pretty out at 35 feet with something dropping in. Everybody's saying, "Ooh", and it's three points.

• 16:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It looks pretty good in the hand, doesn't it?

• 16:52Speaker 05

  And it's three points, you know. So, the three-point shot has changed the game. That's basically what it is.

• 16:59Gary O'Reilly?

  We've got former teammate Jamal Wilks with us and we're going to explore that. Jamal, thank you for staying with us. Why? Why, why, why, why, why did the skyhook disappear off the map? What happened?

• 17:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's unbelievable to me. I think much of it has to do with the hype of the game now. On the newsreels, all the young kids grew up watching the slam dunk. You know, the popularity of the slam dunk contest along with the three-point shot. You know, guys, big guys now, guys coming over from Europe are valued because they can shoot the three-point shot as well. And that's all well and good. I think, you know, the inside game will come back when someone wins a championship and then they'll all start emulating it again.

• 17:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  You know, for the life of me, I don't understand why any seven footer... Doesn't have a hook shot and it'll lay the skyhook. I don't have an answer for that.

• 18:05Gary O'Reilly?

  In this last clip, Neil deGrasse Tyson wanted to know how many three-point shots Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had taken in his career. Oh, sit down for this one. Let's find out how many.

• 18:17Speaker 05

  I shot 13 and I made one.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your whole career, or you got 10 years, if I did the math right, 10 years of your career was in the presence of the three-point line?

• 18:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 18:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that's right.

• 18:28Speaker 05

  10, 12, something like that.

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you had 13 attempts.

• 18:33Speaker 05

  Right.

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you made one?

• 18:35Speaker 05

  I made one.

• 18:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So of your 38 billion points, 38,000 points, three of those were a three-point shot?

• 18:45Speaker 05

  One three-point shot. The rest were all free throws and two-point shots.

• 18:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they don't need the big man outside the three-point line. So what the hell were you doing?

• 18:58Speaker 05

  I was giving my team reliable shots close to the basket, which forced the defense to collapse a little bit and gave them more room on the perimeter.

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But when you go to the perimeter and take a three-point shot, what were you thinking?

• 19:13Speaker 05

  I'm probably gonna be taken out for taking that shot.

• 19:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was it, "Come on, guys, give me a chance here, please"?

• 19:21Speaker 05

  No, no. And the one shot that I made, the ball, I like bounced out into the corner and I went and got it and nobody came to guard me.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:29Speaker 05

  So I stepped back and said, "Okay, I'll shoot this one" and I made it.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They should have like bronzed that ball and gave it to you.

• 19:39Gary O'Reilly?

  So Jamal, if he'd have shot and missed, would he have been given a hard time?

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 19:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Being Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was no protection, right?

• 19:52Speaker 03

  Oh, no, absolutely not. Not in that situation.

• 19:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Not in that situation.

• 19:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's so funny. And I'm sure if you took a three-pointer, people were expecting you to make it. If Kareem takes one, they're like, "Okay, well, we'll see." If he misses, he's like, "Well, you know, he's not supposed to make a three." But if you miss it, they're like, "Hey, what's up? What's up?"

• 20:14Gary O'Reilly?

  If I could give Jamal Wilk's a magic ticket, get you entry to any... Place to go and watch a basketball game. Who would Jamal Wilks go and watch today?

• 20:25Speaker 03

  I would watch the Golden State Warriors. Uh, being a former Warrior, uh, I cut my teeth with them and they're playing such great, great basketball right now.

• 20:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Uh, and they're playing it the right way, you know, they're getting, and by that I mean, you know, they're getting everyone involved and, and, and, and they're all sacrificing for the good of the team.

• 20:46Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I would go watch them.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  And do you see any simulation, I mean, any similarities between, uh, Golden State and, and, and Showtime? Because when you said they're all sacrifices for the good of the team.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 20:58Chuck Nice?

  They have a lot of superstars on that team. Uh, and then with the addition of Durant, they got one more superstar, like, so, you know, what's it like? Just give us a sense. What's the mindset of when you're a superstar, that guy's a superstar, that guy's a superstar? What has to be the team psychology in order for you to win? Cause I'm a Sixers fan. I remember we had a team full of superstars when I was a kid and it was a disaster.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. Oh, right, right. Just because you have a team of superstars, and I won't hold that against you Chuck for being a Sixers fan.

• 21:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Well said, Jamal. Well said, sir.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, you know, Julius is a dear friend, but, but first of all, it's very humbling. Uh, you know, you walk out and you have six, seven, eight superstars. Uh, well, first of all, you bring your A-game to practice in the games every day because someone's waiting to take your spot.

• 21:55Chuck Nice?

  There you go. There you go.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  It's very humbling. It's very humbling and, and, uh, uh, and then, you know, the competitive factor comes out, uh, and then, and the challenge factor comes out and, you know, you want to do your best to be your best, but you know you gotta do your best to get minutes on the floor too. So, uh, it just brings about a collective, uh, humility.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  And then you let all the horses go.

• 22:25Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 22:26Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, Jamal, thank you so much for your time. So it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you about your time at the Lakers and of course Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So thank you once again. We are going to take a commercial break, but it won't stop there with the Lakers loving. We have another one of Kareem's former teammates. This time, Michael Cooper will be with us on Playing with Science. Do not go away. Yeah, there you heard it. Back in a minute.

• 23:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 23:06Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. And today, we're in the middle of our game changer series. This particular show about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and his legendary skyhook shot. And joining us by video is Michael Cooper, the legendary Michael Cooper, the Secretary of Defense.

• 23:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:26Gary O'Reilly?

  The man who is now head coach of the Atlanta Dream of the WNBA. Michael, what a pleasure to have you on board, sir.

• 23:33Chuck Nice?

  Welcome to the show.

• 23:34Speaker 06

  Thank you so much. And Gary, I was gonna tell you, preach on.

• 23:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, sit, sit, sit still. There's a lot more gonna come, sir.

• 23:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, as a matter of fact, we've got nothing but praise for you, my friend, because of course, you know, Kareem being who he was, and this show is about, you know, basically the skyhook and the science behind it, and of course Kareem himself, and you played with him, and being on the court with him, a soldier at arms with him. But you yourself have quite a few highlights on the internet that still live about Michael Cooper. And the one thing I remember about you specifically is that when you came on the court, the fans would all go, "Coop, Coop." And then the announcers would say, "And the fans showing their appreciation

• 24:24Chuck Nice?

  for Michael Cooper." Not booing, by the way, they're saying "Coop."

• 24:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you know what, watching it in the 80s in the UK, the socks.

• 24:34Chuck Nice?

  The what?

• 24:35Gary O'Reilly?

  The socks.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, the socks.

• 24:36Gary O'Reilly?

  The high, the high, the crew socks, the high top socks. I always remember those, such a standout thing. But we got a clip, right?

• 24:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, we got a clip. Take a, take a, just for those of you who may have forgotten, here's a little taste of the Magic, not Johnson, the magic of Michael Cooper.

• 24:54Speaker 07

  Not gonna guard the inbound passer. Now here they send a man out on him. Now they change the man and put Stockton on him. Stockton a short man, so Coop can get it in over him. The Lakers are out of timeouts. No timeouts left, the ball to Magic. Dribble drive, down the middle, out to Coop. Eighteen footer, goooood!

• 25:16Speaker 07

  But, there's still seven seconds.

• 25:21Speaker 07

  And the Lakers have no timeouts left. But listen to this crowd on Cooper's heroics.

• 25:33Chuck Nice?

  And there you have it, just a, just a little taste of, uh, what, what Mr. Michael Cooper used to do all the time.

• 25:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 25:42Chuck Nice?

  All the time. How's, how's that feel when you, when you look at that?

• 25:46Speaker 06

  You know what Chuck and Gary, that was my only shot I hit in that series, and it was a big shot. And you know what, that goes to show you that, uh, the Lakers Showtime era wasn't built on one player. It was built on eight players, and for Magic to have the confidence, and you know, the team knew I was having a shooting slump, but for Magic to have the confidence in me to kick the basketball out there, uh, is what Showtime was all about.

• 26:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 06

  Shot, and I was finally glad to hit a shot. And if that was the one that was gonna win that series for us, I'm glad it was that shot.

• 26:14Gary O'Reilly?

  When you got drafted by the Lakers, what was it like the first day you walk out on court with them?

• 26:21Speaker 06

  The first astounding thing is when I got drafted by the Lakers, uh, came into training camp, and training camp used to be at Loyola Marymount University.

• 26:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh-huh.

• 26:30Speaker 06

  I do. And I walked into the gym, and who would I see out there? Shooting sky hooks was Kareem. And I would just, my mouth was open, and I said, yo, this is the guy I watched, 'cause growing up in Los Angeles, you saw him at UCLA for four years, and...

• 26:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:44Speaker 06

  Got a chance to see him with the Bucks and win a championship there. So finally here he is with the Lakers. And I just remember I couldn't stop staring at him. And then slowly people started coming in and then there was Javale Wiltz, uh, wanting, winning a championship with the Golden State Warriors. Uh, and then finally, the person that I admired a lot, because I've watched them the last two years, was Norm Nixon.

• 27:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 06

  I was like, this little guy is that, that, that good, that big. And, you know, it was, it was a, an eye opening experience. And I think any rookie going into a camp, no matter what team you go to, they have those stars on the team. And it is, it's shocking. Uh, but you know what? You gotta get over that. And Jerry West was a coach at the time. He said, cool. He almost kinda like slapped it back to reality and said, come on, man, you gotta play. So it was fun watching them.

• 27:29Chuck Nice?

  You know what I think is funny is that you called Norm Nixon a little guy. I did a TV show with Norm a little while ago, and standing next to him, uh, he looked like he was taking his toddler out to get some ice cream. But.

• 27:43Speaker 06

  You must be very small, damn. Norm's a little guy. And again, I'm surprised to fix so, but, uh, it was, it was, it was a funny thing to see.

• 27:52Gary O'Reilly?

  You, okay, so you'd have turned up day one, right? Early, because you want to impress the organization, correct?

• 28:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 28:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Kareem was already firing sky hooks.

• 28:06Speaker 06

  Out there early.

• 28:07Chuck Nice?

  Out there early.

• 28:08Speaker 06

  And that goes back to his, uh, uh, his conditioning, uh, from, you know, back with John Wooden, when he was at UCLA. They get out there, the bigs would get out and shoot their hooks and get their work in. Then the guards would come out and then finally the whole team would come out for practice. So he just followed suit and that's what he knew. So he came out there. He was the first one I saw when I walked into the gym. He was the first person I saw.

• 28:29Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 28:30Speaker 06

  Shooting sky hooks. But you guys, you know what? I want to touch on something Gary had mentioned a little earlier. You had talked about our socks.

• 28:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 28:36Speaker 06

  Uh, my socks, I held my socks up high, uh, for, you know, when I was in high school. The reason why I wore long socks, I wore my strings out and I wore two sweatbands because in a high school game of the week in 1974, my grandmother was gonna see us play and she had glaucoma and she had to sit real close to the TV and they, she'd say, hey, you have to do something to differentiate yourself. So I'll know you from the other players. So that's what happened with the long socks. Little did I know they were gonna play big benefits because in the eighties, you know, we were in that Daisy Duke era where the shorts were really, really

• 29:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 06

  So my socks kinda like even my body out a little bit.

• 29:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, thank you for giving me that backstory. That's really, really touching.

• 29:19Chuck Nice?

  Very, very cool.

• 29:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, as I called you just before we came on, the Secretary of Defense.

• 29:25Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 29:26Gary O'Reilly?

  How did you cope with Kareem in practice with those sky hooks? Or did you say, why am I bothering?

• 29:35Chuck Nice?

  Did you, as a Defensive Player of the Year, did you ever have to, when you guys are practicing, uh, d- d- defend Kareem? And did that help your defensive game?

• 29:44Speaker 06

  No, I'm glad I never had to defend him. Down there on a double team, but no, that was Michael Thompson.

• 29:51Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:52Speaker 06

  Jim Jones, those guys, they caught those sky hooks, but it was a thing to see. But in practice, again, playing on the, uh, the purple team, cause the gold team was the starters.

• 30:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:00Speaker 06

  Uh, it was fun and it was always a, a way of how are we gonna stop this? How can we stop this shot? And it was an unstoppable shot.

• 30:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:07Speaker 06

  Uh, Kareem just kinda went through the motions because he knew nobody could stop his shot in the game of basketball at that time, and especially nobody on our team. So he would just kinda go through the motions and shoot jumpers, shoot left-hand hooks until it was winning time because Pat Riley said, okay, uh, next point wins the game, losers gotta run 10. Well, we knew we were gonna end up running because nobody could stop it.

• 30:30Chuck Nice?

  That's funny.

• 30:31Gary O'Reilly?

  We, I mean, there's clips where Kareem is speaking to Neil deGrasse Tyson about his understanding of the science that went into his sky hook. Did you ever get a feeling with him in the locker room that this guy had everything calmly in the right place at the right time? Was he as organized as that back then in the eighties?

• 30:51Speaker 06

  Yes, he was always organized. Kareem was a quiet individual.

• 30:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:55Speaker 06

  He came into the locker room, and you know how some teams will have the locker room banner and there'll be somebody funny telling jokes and people be different things. Kareem always sat, and he sat next to Jamal Wilk's, uh, uh, both of them being from UCLA, and Kareem was always reading a book. Uh, some type of book, uh, used in autobiography of African Americans, uh, some type, some kind of book he was always reading, really, but every now and then, and people don't notice about him, he probably was one of my funniest teammates. Uh, he liked to play practical jokes every now and then, didn't like them played on him, but he'd play them on you.

• 31:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, ain't that the way?

• 31:34Speaker 06

  Everything was always together with him, uh, and once we got closer to the game, he would put the book down and he would just kind of like stare. And one day I asked him, I said, Cat, what do you think about, he says, Coop, I'm visualizing the game in my head, what I have to do. And it was always like the first five to seven minutes. So that was his way of getting focused and getting into the game. But you could tell from then that everything he did, he had planned out in his mind, whether it went right or wrong, but at least it was planned out and he always came out and perfected his plan.

• 32:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Michael, before we let you go and we thank you for your time, I have a simple question. Just how good was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

• 32:12Speaker 06

  People ask me that all the time and there are a lot of great players that have played in the NBA and you got to go back to Will, Will, Will Chamberlain, Bill Russell. And people ask me, Coop, if you were starting an NBA team and you had all the players that's ever played this game.

• 32:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 32:26Speaker 06

  Who'd you pick? Kareem would always be my pick. And the reason for that is he had an unstoppable shot. At his prime, you gotta remember Kareem led this league in rebounding. He led the league in blocked shots one year. And the most important thing is you had a big guy like Kareem that could pop out on the perimeter, but you couldn't foul him. Kareem shot like in the mid eighties, uh, for free throw shooting. And you know, the way things are going now, they have the Hack-a-Shack which started and now they put these centers on the line and you know, basketball's not fun when it's played that way. But

• 32:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 32:59Speaker 06

  I'll go with Kareem, but there's many, many great ones. And, uh, I might be dumb, but I'm gonna start with the big guy, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

• 33:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow. Would you pick yourself in your own franchise?

• 33:09Speaker 06

  I think so.

• 33:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Good man. That, that's the answer I was looking for.

• 33:14Chuck Nice?

  That's the way it's supposed to go. Hey, Michael, thanks so much for joining us, man. We hope you'll come back and, uh, and say hello. And, uh, thanks so much for taking the time and spending with us right now.

• 33:22Speaker 06

  With you Chuck and Gary, thank you so much for having me.

• 33:25Gary O'Reilly?

  It's a pleasure sir, an absolute pleasure, thank you. So.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's our show, man.

• 33:29Gary O'Reilly?

  That is it. I hope you've enjoyed it. It's the first of our game changer series and I think we couldn't have picked a better start than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So, stick around, we'll have plenty more, I'm sure.

• 33:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and special thanks of course to Jamal Wilks and Michael Cooper for being a guest on the show.

• 33:46Gary O'Reilly?

  And thank you to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for being such a standout basketball player and of course, the great man himself, Neil deGrasse Tyson, for spending that much time and getting such great thoughts out of him. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 34:02Gary O'Reilly?

  And this has been Playing with Science. Hope you enjoyed it and we look forward to your company very, very soon.