‘Fans followed me home, to the airport’: how NBA players cope with fame

Basketball can provide players with huge financial rewards as well as intense scrutiny. How do they adapt to life in the public eye?

Michael Cooper knew pressure. The NBA's 1987 Defensive Player of the Year had won five rings with the 1980s Showtime Lakers, blocking shots alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and finishing Coop-a-loop" passes from Magic Johnson for dunks. But in 2000, things were different. He wasn't in the game, he was coaching it from the sidelines for the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks. And despite Cooper being named coach of the year, the Sparks fell short in the playoffs to the Houston Comets.

When we lost that," Cooper says, people said, Coop, you're supposed to be this great coach. And you can't get the Sparks over the hump.'" It was hard to swallow. When most people come up short at work, the world doesn't know about it - or debate it on live television. With fame comes consequences," says Cooper. You have to take the good and the bad."