But after the team moved to Minot, N.D., Cooke blew out his other Achilles’. Bad luck compounding imprudent decisions, his career was over, a half-dozen years after his showdown with James. The question echoed: was Cooke ever really that good or merely the beneficiary of the New York buzz?
“You can’t put him in the group of New York guys that were overhyped,” Vaccaro said. “What it came down to was a complete mistrust in who and what he was. Teams were afraid.”
Vaccaro insisted that Cooke’s shattered hoop dreams were far more authentic than those of William Gates and Arthur Agee, chronicled by the director of “Hoop Dreams,” Steve James.
“Lenny was on the pedestal because he was one of those elite guys,” Vaccaro said. “He was damn good. I just think he blew it all.”