Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate cooperation strategy selection for a network multiple-in-multiple-out (N-MIMO) communication system. As described herein, one or more nodes in a communication system capable of N-MIMO communication can calculate marginal utilities, projected per-user rates, and/or other parameters corresponding to respective associated users. Based on these calculations, respective network nodes can perform user scheduling and selection, cell scheduling and selection, selection of a cooperation strategy (e.g., coordinated silencing, joint transmission, coordinated beamforming, etc.), and/or other operations to provide cooperative communication for respective users. As further described herein, projected rate calculation for a given user can be adjusted based on processing or channel implementation loss associated with the user, interference nulling capability of the user, or other factors. As additionally described herein, these and/or other parameters can be fed back by respective users to a serving network node and/or mandated via system performance requirements.