Hanging with Mr. Cooper... in Denver

The Sparks have lost one of their biggest Spark-plugs, as Head Coach Michael Cooper will leave the team to become an assistant coach with the Denver Nuggets.

Cooper has been offered assistant coaching positions in the NBA before (he was a Lakers assistant from 1994-97), but probably took this one because of swirling rumors that Jeff Bzdelik will be fired in Denver thereby giving Cooper the inside track to the job there.

In the meantime, LAist salutes Michael Cooper for bringing two WNBA titles to Los Angeles. We don't know what we'd do without them. Cooper did such a great job that it will take two coaches to fill his shoes.