Science of the Skyhook with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Re-release)

What’s the best shot in basketball? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly break down the physics behind what makes the Skyhook so effective, as well as one of the greatest eras with basketball greats, Jamaal Wilkes, Michael Cooper, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Sports Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist and sports enthusiast. That's why we do Sports Edition. And I've got with me Gary O'Reilly, of course, Gary.

• 0:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Hi Neil.

• 0:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A former soccer pro over in the UK and current soccer announcer. It's great, thanks for sharing some of your announcing time with us over here in Sports Edition. And of course, we've got Chuck Nice, my other co-host. Now Gary, you were cooking up something for this installment.

• 0:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got some recipe that you didn't share with me in advance. So let me, let me hear what you've got going now.

• 0:51Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, so we've gone back to an old recipe from our Playing with Science days and brought forward a show about the skyhook. The skyhook isn't like a missile from the original Star Wars movie or anything spectacular like that. It is the signature shot from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA legend and martial arts expert. Now, this shot...

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, just to be clear, he's not just any old martial arts person, he was trained by one of the best.

• 1:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm, that being Bruce Lee.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bruce Lee, of course.

• 1:25Gary O'Reilly?

  And starred in one of his movies. Now, there's 38,387 points, which is the record all-time points tally in NBA history. Kareem owns that. He hasn't played for 30-odd years, yet he still owns it. That's how lethal a shot this skyhook is. And with you talking to him, you break down the mechanics, the geometry and the physics, and he understood all of that.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was quite the conversation that I had. I distinctly remember that. I mean, he was sitting in my office and his legs, I don't know if I should interview his legs or him, you know, what's the difference?

• 1:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, he's seven foot two, the dude's tall. And the thing is, the story behind the story is very StarTalk for us. So we found two of his teammates from the LA Lakers during that 80s decade, the most successful decade in Lakers history.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The dynasty, yeah.

• 2:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, the dynasty, Showtime. And we spoke to Jamal Wilks and Michael Cooper, and we unlocked stories of what it was like to be part and parcel of that whole sporting franchise. Now, there's a lovely little human interest story. One of the players, Jamal and Michael, their grandmother has glaucoma and she can't see the TV as well. So the player decides that he will do something on court that will enable his grandmother to see that it's him playing on court. So I'd like those people to listen and then they'll understand what that is. And if it doesn't touch you, then go and get yourself checked out because you might just have a heart of stoner.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, or no heart at all.

• 2:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Maybe that.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, as they say, Gary, let's roll tape.

• 2:58Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 3:01Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 3:02Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. Yes, indeed. 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.

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, we need to do this. 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? Hey Chuck, how you doing? Hey Gary, it's a pleasure to be with you guys today.

• 3:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Jamal, the pleasure is us.

• 3:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, without a doubt.

• 3:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Just to talk to any of the guys who were around that organization at that time is such a thrill for us because you just reinvented the game, let alone what Kareem did on his own.

• 3:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I mean, but 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 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,

• 4:34Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, Jamal. We're talking about Kareem. We're all talking about Jamal. We're also talking about Jamal. And 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 a 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. Let's do it.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Magic the distance gives to Kareem slam. Same. 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 have kept their balance. Nobody could have 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. Missed off the net.

• 5:21Speaker 03

  Tickled 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.

• 5:33Chuck Nice?

  Boom, and there it is again.

• 5:34Speaker 03

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

• 5:39Chuck 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.

• 5:55Chuck Nice?

  Can you talk about what it was like to witness somebody who has an indefensible shot?

• 6:03Speaker 04

  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 devastating offensive weapon in any sport that I've ever seen. And it was a very simple shot.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  But 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.

• 7:03Chuck 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.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 7:17Speaker 05

  I'd say three quarters.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three quarters?

• 7:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 7:21Speaker 05

  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, you become accurate. You're a marksman at that point.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're a basketball marksman?

• 7:47Speaker 05

  You have to be. Well, if you're gonna 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.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 8:32Speaker 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.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but that requires some musculoskeletal activity.

• 8:43Speaker 05

  Yes. That's why you practice.

• 8:47Speaker 04

  That's the quote of the interview. That's why you practice.

• 8:50Chuck 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,

• 9:30Chuck 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.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  Oh, you're, you're absolutely right Chuck. And, and I couldn't agree with you more. I'll 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.

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  They were blue collar guys.

• 10:47Chuck Nice?

  They were.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  And we were Hollywood.

• 10:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  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.

• 11:21Gary 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.

• 11:35Speaker 04

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

• 11:39Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 11:45Speaker 04

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

• 11:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  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.

• 12:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  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.

• 12:33Chuck 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.

• 13:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Young guys do, they replicate.

• 13:01Chuck 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.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, you're absolutely correct. It is interesting. Yeah, Magic was a game changer too. And, 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 is unfortunate that the hard work he put in gets overlooked with the skyhook,

• 14:01Speaker 04

  which is just a thing of beauty to watch. Whether you like basketball or not, it's a beautiful thing to watch.

• 14:08Chuck 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.

• 14:23Neil 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?

• 14:49Speaker 05

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

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're also jumping.

• 14:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm also jumping.

• 14:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now the rim is 10 feet up.

• 15:02Speaker 05

  Exactly 10.

• 15:03Neil 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

• 15:14Speaker 05

  Chance it has.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chance it has for going in.

• 15:16Speaker 05

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

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That drops.

• 15:22Speaker 05

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

• 15:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 15:28Speaker 05

  Much smaller.

• 15:29Neil 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.

• 15:36Speaker 05

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

• 15:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 15:47Speaker 05

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

• 15:54Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 16:01Speaker 04

  When I saw the skyhook, I mean, I, I just marveled. I would think of Picasso, I would think of. Wow. Alright, I would think of John Coltrane, I would think of The Hendrix, 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 wanna 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,

• 16:43Speaker 04

  this just wasn't a shot, this was, you know, art, music on the highest level. Uh, and it was just, just, uh, you know, I mean, I already said it, a thing of beauty, I, I can't express it any other way.

• 16:56Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm happy with that.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely.

• 16:58Chuck Nice?

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

• 17:04Gary O'Reilly?

  And a thing of beauty.

• 17:05Chuck Nice?

  It doesn't get any better than that.

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right, that's right, yeah.

• 17:08Chuck 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?

• 17:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 17:15Chuck Nice?

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

• 17:27Gary 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.

• 17:45Neil 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?

• 18:11Speaker 05

  I think the hook shot has fallen out of favor 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. They want to look real pretty out at 35 feet with something dropping in. Everybody's saying, "Ooh", and it's three points.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 18:36Speaker 05

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

• 18:44Gary 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?

• 18:59Speaker 04

  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. 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.

• 19:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly.

• 19:38Speaker 04

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

• 19:49Gary 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.

• 20:02Speaker 05

  I shot 13 and I made one.

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 20:12Speaker 05

  Right.

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that's right.

• 20:13Speaker 05

  10, 12, something like that.

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So you had 13 attempts?

• 20:18Speaker 05

  Right.

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you made one?

• 20:20Speaker 05

  I made one.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 20:30Speaker 05

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

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 20:42Speaker 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.

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 20:58Speaker 05

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

• 21:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 21:06Speaker 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.

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:14Speaker 05

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

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 21:24Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 21:30Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 21:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Being Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was no protection, right?

• 21:37Speaker 04

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

• 21:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Not in that situation.

• 21:42Chuck 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, it'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?"

• 21:59Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 22:10Speaker 04

  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.

• 22:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  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.

• 22:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would go watch them.

• 22:33Chuck 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. 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.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  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.

• 23:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Well said, Jamal. Well said, sir.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  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.

• 23:40Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go. There you go.

• 23:42Speaker 04

  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.

• 24:07Speaker 04

  And then you let all the horses go.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 24:11Gary 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. Cooper will be with us on Playing with Science. Do not go away. Yeah, there you heard it.

• 24:41Chuck Nice?

  Boo.

• 24:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Back in a minute.

• 24:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 24:50Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 24:51Gary 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.

• 25:10Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 25:10Gary 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.

• 25:17Chuck Nice?

  Welcome to the show.

• 25:19Speaker 06

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

• 25:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 25:23Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 25:26Chuck 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 for Michael

• 26:09Chuck Nice?

  Cooper, not booing, by the way, they're saying coop."

• 26:13Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 26:19Chuck Nice?

  The what?

• 26:19Gary O'Reilly?

  The socks.

• 26:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh, the socks.

• 26:20Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 26:27Chuck 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.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  Not gonna guard the inbound passer. Now here they send a man out on it. Now they change the man and put Stockton on it. Stockton a short man, so Cooper 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 Cooper. Eighteen footer, good!

• 27:01Speaker 03

  But, there's still seven seconds.

• 27:05Speaker 03

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

• 27:18Chuck Nice?

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

• 27:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 27:27Chuck Nice?

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

• 27:30Speaker 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 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 is what Showtime was all about.

• 27:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 27:53Speaker 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.

• 27:59Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 28:06Speaker 06

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

• 28:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh huh.

• 28:16Speaker 06

  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, hey, this is the guy I watched, because growing up in Los Angeles, you saw him at UCLA for four years, and...

• 28:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 28:29Speaker 06

  He's 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 Wills, uh, winning the 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.

• 28:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Speaker 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, "Goop, you almost kind of like slapped it back to reality and said, "Come on, man, you gotta play." So it was fun watching him.

• 29:13Chuck 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...

• 29:27Speaker 06

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

• 29:40Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 29:47Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 29:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Kareem was already firing sky hooks?

• 29:51Speaker 06

  Out there early.

• 29:52Chuck Nice?

  Out there early.

• 29:53Speaker 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'd 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.

• 30:14Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 30:14Speaker 06

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

• 30:21Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 30:21Speaker 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

• 30:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 30:57Speaker 06

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

• 31:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, thank you for giving me that backstory. That's really, really touching. Very, very cool. Okay, as I called you just before we came on, the Secretary of Defense. That's right. How did you cope with Kareem in practice with those sky hooks? Or did you say, why am I bothering?

• 31:20Chuck 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?

• 31:29Speaker 06

  Uh, no. I'm black and never had to defend him. I was around down there on a double team, but no, that was Michael Thompson.

• 31:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 31:36Speaker 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, because the gold team was the starters.

• 31:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:45Speaker 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.

• 31:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:52Speaker 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.

• 32:15Gary O'Reilly?

  That's funny. 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?

• 32:36Speaker 06

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

• 32:39Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:40Speaker 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 there for 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 him played on him, but he'd play him on.

• 33:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, ain't that the way?

• 33:19Speaker 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.

• 33:47Gary 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?

• 33:57Speaker 06

  People ask me that all the time and there are a lot of great players that have played in the NBA. And you've 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.

• 34:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 34:11Speaker 06

  You pick Kareem would always be my pick. And the reason for that is he had an unstoppable shot. At his prime, y'all 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 is not fun when it's played that way, but.

• 34:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 34:44Speaker 06

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

• 34:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow. Would you pick yourself in your own franchise?

• 34:54Speaker 06

  I think so.

• 34:54Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 34:58Chuck 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, and spending with us right now.

• 35:07Speaker 06

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

• 35:10Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 35:13Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's our show, man.

• 35:14Gary 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.

• 35:25Chuck Nice?

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

• 35:31Gary 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.

• 35:45Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 35:46Gary O'Reilly?

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

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I hope you all enjoyed that bit of Memory Lane there, where the three of us in different times interviewed different basketball players to make this one show that Gary baked in his oven afresh.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Gary, always good to have you there, man. Pleasure, man. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist for StarTalk Sports Edition. Keep looking up.