The Prestige TV Podcast - Recapping Episode 6 of ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty’

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Bill Simmons, Wosny Lambre, and Chris Ryan recap Episode 6 of HBO’s ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.’ They discuss what they like about the show so far, John C. Reilly’s portrayal of Dr. Jerry Buss, the authentic locker room talk, and more. Hosts: Bill Simmons, Wosny Lambre, and Chris Ryan Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's OLLLY.com. This is the Prestige TV podcast. My name is Bill Simmons. I'm here as Wozni Lambray. Chris Ryan. We're going to talk about... Dan, dun, dun, dun, dun. I didn't like that song initially, but then eventually I liked it.

All right. We're six episodes in. I didn't, the second rewatch of the first two episodes, I liked it, then the Jerry Westoff, and then I started rethinking I was in my own head. But now where in episode six was, I just enjoy hanging out with the show. That's where I've landed. Exactly. I'm the exact same way.

And the thing is, we know where the train is headed. That's what I like most about the show. Like, even with all the digressions, if I didn't understand what the Lakers dynasty would of meaning and achieving. Sorry, Bill. I would probably be more annoyed by the show, but I know where we're going. And so I'm happy with it.

I'm satisfied with it. I love the moments. My favorite is stuff in the locker room where everybody's just shitting on magic because he's the youngest guy in the room. And they just tell him, shut the fuck up. You're doofy. I should have fucked your girl.

It's just great. I love those moments. Yeah, how unsuffer where he is. He's coming in with the big radio and he's like, The DJ is here. They're like, who the fuck are you? Do you have any cocaine?

Chris, what's your favorite part? The fact that if you don't like the show now, it's probably going to be totally different in two episodes. It's unlike any other show of recent memory where, if you were like, oh, this Jerry West depiction, it's not quite hitting right for me, or if you felt like the stuff with Magic and Lansing was a little slow, guess what?

This is a show about Pat Riley and Paul Westhead now. It's pretty awesome the way they can kind of manufacture a new star. for the show itself, a new hero for the show itself, every two weeks. And I thought the show really took off when they let Tracy Letts cook and let Jack McKinney come in. And, you know, even for basketball freaks, I think that the show is a little bit caught in between

where it's like too dense for casuals, but maybe a little too explanatory for people who are real basketball fans. But I found the McKinney stuff and the introduction of Showtime, camera floating around on rollerblades, like introducing these concepts. Like I thought that was awesome. That's when it really hooked me. It reminds me a little of the OJ show,

the one when Cuba Gooding was OJ, which was still one of the best versions. Great show. It's a super influential show when you go back and look at it. Oh, yeah. I think that's when like the quote unquote TV, made for TV movie went to a whole other level in a whole bunch of ways.

And we got real actors. And it's like, Schwimmers playing Robert Shapiro? What? And now seven years later, we're here with a variety of different shows. But one of the things I like about it is, like, with the OJ thing, you thought you knew everything. And you kind of did.

But it was still fun to watch them either obey the reality of what happened or kind of go veer off in these different directions. And for me, like, I thought the show took off when Jason Siegel, Adrian Brody, the guy who plays Jack McKinney, once those people were more involved and magic was less involved, I thought the balance of the show. I thought it was just too much magic. the first two episodes. Now it's like we have all these characters. Jeannie Bus is obviously interesting. I don't know how authentic it is factually that she was disavowed. But I think she's interesting character.

But I think on the show, she's exactly. She's getting more and more interesting as the show goes on. Like, you know, putting, like being like, no, my dad's going to like it if sexy, skimpy chicks are on the situation. He's going to give the green light to that. Like, that's a weird, you know, dynamic to sort of. unpacking like that character is super interesting and you know i i'm still obsessed with the john c riley of it all every time he's on screen yeah it's magic for me like he's he's playing so many different

emotions and tones and people quite frankly like dr bus is different people in different situations all the time and john c riley is just showing an incredible amount of range and he's fun and he's vulnerable and he's tragic like i love it i thought that getting him like putting a little pressure on bus this episode, this past episode, it's really cool. Like the Tarkhanian episode is cool. You start to see him start to get,

like, interested in deeper into the league and deeper into the basketball business. But this specific episode where he's dealing with is mom's simility, the bank coming for the loan, McKinney's injury, and also just like all the other stuff that goes into opening up like this sort of grand opening of the Lakers.

And when Bill Sharman is trying to figure out what they're going to say about Jack McKinney's like, You tell him like this. And I'm like, that's John C. Riley, man. This is really happening. This is really good. Yeah. The Will Farrell, if it had been Will Ferrell in that role, I don't know if we ever get there.

Tough. Tough. Yeah. I don't, I think it would have felt like an S&L thing. And who's the other one? Michael Shannon. Michael Shannon. I don't know if he's fun enough.

Yeah. No, no, no. Because, and also, I don't, Will Farrell dramatically, he's just never done it for me. And I don't know that he's. wants to do it for people in that way, right? And so, John C. Raleigh being able to do all of these things that once are crazy. And, like, that scene with the businessman where he brings magic over. Yeah.

And he implies that magic is their property. And magic is doing the calculation. Like, as a black dude, like, these white dudes are calling me their property. But, like, Dr. Bus is, like, performing for the bankers. And, like, he's, they've got him, you know, behind the eight ball. And it's just like, that's so dope to me what this show is able to do all in one scene. Like they're showing you like Dr. Bus isn't this impresario.

Like he's hanging by the seat of his pants. You know, magic is trying to figure this whole thing out. The weird racial undertones. Like, that was incredibly well done, honestly. And not a lot of shows can do shit like that. Yeah, there's like a madman element to this show where it's rooted in the era. and you can't take it personally

because this is just some of the shit that went down the air and they're really good at leaning into that. I thought, I still don't Jack Kent Cook saying boy to magic. I still, that one felt,

I was like, they might have taken some liberties with that. The Jack Kent Cook defender has logged on. Well, I was like, I was like, I don't know if that happened. Like,

that's pretty, if you're like Jack Kent Cook's great grandson, you're like, wait, did my great grandfather do that? Like, but what was just pointed out, I thought was perfect because that was the mentality back then. Like you think about how athletes, how it shifted to where we are in 2022.

Everybody's a brand. Half the people have their own companies. And they're just constantly thinking about how do I leverage the spot I'm in to try to grab more stuff, how to make more money, how to how to do whatever I want to do. And to see magic in that situation where it's just all leeches. There's no blueprint. There's no roadmap for him to follow. Really, it's just Dr. J.

was like the only one in that landscape trying to figure out like, oh, I'll invest in Coca-Cola. Oh, I'm going to make the fish of James Pittsburgh. And OJ, who's really not playing anymore. But I think by this fifth, sixth episode, I think Magic became way more likable as a character on the show. First two, I didn't like them as much. It's like, all right, we're a good thing where Magic just tries to fuck everybody. Like, I'm going to get bored with that really fast.

But now, complex. The show also needed to find, like, some different gears for different scenes. and I actually don't mind Jason Clark as Jerry West, but what he was doing... I like him. I like him now. I like him now, but when he is taking 60% of the scenes in the first two episodes and screaming and being like really intense the entire time,

first of all, obviously people were like, that's not how Jerry West was or that's not exactly how that went. And second of all, it's just like a different, like, intensity level throughout the entire episode, whereas now I feel like, especially with Brody and Siegel, it's just like got like all these different, like nuanced moods going on throughout the episode. And the thing that I love the most about this right now is,

I thought I was going to find this a little bit tiresome after a while. But you know how like, if you read like your dad, dad has like a big historical fiction novel. And if you flip through it, there's like a scene and like the guy goes into the bathroom. It's like, and in the bathroom was Teddy Roosevelt and Nikola Tesla. It's always like these historical figures showing up in random times. But in the Lakers show, I think it's kind of cool where it's like Jack's over there. Paula Abdul, because that's actually what it was.

It was the rich. The Richard Pryor was the best version of that, right? And the Richard Pryor should is amazing. Yeah, because I feel like that might have happened. And, you know, Spencer Haywood, it's like, oh, man. Because we have this whole background of knowledge of how that actually went down. It's like, oh, man, these two guys are going to meet. This isn't going to go great.

Say, Richard, hey, Spencer, come to my house today. We're going to have some party and some cocaine. You know what's so cool, Bill, about watching that is that reading you way back in the days is how I learned that the NBA had a drug problem around that time. Like, it's not something that you read about. People didn't talk about it. People that Bill was just like, yo, fam, I kind of understand why David Stern goes crazy some of the times.

When he inherited the league, they had legitimate problems. And so when I see, like, that look that Spencer Haywood gives the crack vial, I'm just like, oh, boy, that was, like, that's legitimate tension. in a scene because you come with that baggage of what the NBA was like coming out of the 70s with all of these people getting fucked up off of drugs, man. And thankfully Spencer Haywood, you know, made it out of that. And, you know, God bless them. But damn, that gave the scene more weight.

You could also just feel like the relative lack of a support system that the players had because, like, Kareem is obviously keeping his own counsel and has his own goals with his career. and they have like this like you know you've got coop who's like I'm just trying to like get a career going like I can't get cut I can't get traded um magic is trying not to get his entire life rights taken away from him as he's like going through this whole process and these guys are like there has like there's like that almost that energy of like them being like working class dudes and like my life is not guaranteed for me like this could all be taken away from me whether it's through drugs or whether it's through drugs or whether it's through a knee injury or whether it's because the coach doesn't like me or whatever. And if you get traded, you might get traded somewhere Nowersville and not be in L.A. The insecurity is real. And the way they flip it from like these supremely confident athletes to being just straight up like career insecurity or just insecurity within your own belief in yourself is super, super interesting.

And again, like the, I love the dynamic between the players, man. Norm Nixon's kid is doing an incredible job of portraying him like when he's like, yeah, they go to white man shadow. Like, I love that dynamic just to gen. It's almost generational as well where like Kareem's just like, bro, I'm coming out of civil. I was marching with Dr. King, fan. You up here laughing and grinning and dancing for these white people. I don't play that shit. Like the cultural divide, the generational divide.

It's so cool to see it happen. amongst the players. It's not like player against coach. That's something you see all the time. Like, okay, crusty old coach, young hot upstart. The dynamic within the team, the players, these generational and cultural differences are playing out in front of you,

which is also dope to me. It's a great point. It's my favorite thing about the show. We have not seen a lot of people laying the plane on the locker room. Guys just shooting the shit. Guys busting each other with balls. And when it happens, it's stuff like in Bull Durham and things like that.

It hasn't happened as much in the basketball. And if anything, it's gone pretty badly. Especially not recently. Because if you look at like Moneyball, that's like the locker room stuff is actually front office stuff. The stuff that's like fun to like, oh, this is kind of like draft day or money ball or like a little bit more about like trades and money and stuff like that. The ball busting.

Like Spencer Haywood, whether he was circumcised or not. And that whole thing was so fucking funny. Them busted on magic about this girl who's obviously glomming onto him and trying to pretend it's his girl. And the way they react to that and bust his chops, like that's what a locker room's like. So I think to me that's the heart of the show is now,

I listen to this podcast sometimes called The Watch. I don't know if you guys have to experimented a bit. This guy in there, Andy Greenwald, but I think still cranking it out. I can't remember. But he always talks about how it takes, sometimes it takes four or five episodes with the show, right? It's kind of like you pull the cookies out of the oven.

You don't want to pull the cookie off the tray right away, my crumble or whatever. You got to wait like 15 minutes. I think this show is a really good example. I feel like from the moment McKinney, his head's bleeding on the driveway, the show kind of found whatever it's stride was. I don't know what you think. Yeah, well, it's good.

The cool thing about what it's doing now, and that is a point Andy makes a lot. And it's also a situation where when you have seven to 10 pretty good shows on at any given time. If people tap out on episode two of Jerry West having sex in a hotel room. Sweaty. Yeah, like, they might not know that all this other stuff is coming. But the way that the show kind of changes is because it's taking characters where they're

like lodged in one part of the depth chart. It's like a team basically. Yeah. And it's like you take Pat Riley, who's like the ninth man. And now he's like the sixth man. And pretty soon he's going to be the star play. And, like, you can kind of watch these people go up and down, like, sliders. It's really, it's a testament to how, I mean, obviously the pockets that they're playing

with could, like, to be able to get Sally Field to do four scenes. That's nuts. To get Rory Cochran to play Tark to get. What about the music? Yeah, the music. Yeah. I mean, like, it's just. And they had some big ass songs in the last episode.

Yeah. I mean, like, it's obscene. I always feel this way with shows. Like, sometimes you could see the actors. You know, you start filming a show from episode. one and you're trying to figure out your performance and how you're going to dial it up too much, not enough, bring it down. And it does feel

like around episode 4 or 5, like West is, he's not as nuts as he was and all the other people. Segal, I think, has been the most impressive. Was, the worst is and I don't know how intentional is versus whether the guy's a bad actor, but Kareem's rough.

Kareem's not, I don't think Denzel is like, Denzel's not looking over his shoulder going, hey, this guy. Uh-oh. I'm out. He's fine. He just, he does every line like this. And you got to, hey, young buck.

I think maybe that's what Kareem's like, but I feel like cream's like a little more charismatic than that. I don't know. You don't agree. I don't. I think he's doing the Kareem thing. Kareem was somebody who kind of is this stoic person, specifically in public.

Like, we don't really know the private Kareem. Like, the most you get to know about private Kareem is. his op eds and fucking Esquire, right? Which is nice where he's, you know, sort of lecturing us about whatever the political thing of the day is and he's being righteous and all that. And that's cool. But even that is just a version of what Kareem wants to give to us.

I don't, like, have you heard stories about Kareem being this, like, gregarious, fun, three-dimensional person? I haven't heard them. I haven't heard that. But I don't think he's, this stoic. I think when you talk, and I've talked to him before, and he sized me up,

and I think he was like, this is the guy who ripped me 20 times in the book of basketball pod, but I met him once at a part of that magic had when I was doing TV shows. And there's a presence to him where he's not saying a lot, but he's sizing you up and the situation up

because he's so fucking smart that you could feel, I'm not sure this guy's 100% there, this actor. Who's the actor? Solomon Hughes, And here's the flip side of that, though, Bill. If he was bad, the show would be unwatchable. Because Kareem is the most unique person you've got to cast. He's got to be tall.

He's got to have that presence. So if it's, I understand what you're saying. Like, maybe Kareen, the character doesn't seem like the best hang in this show. And I think that they're pushing everybody to extremes to create drama. So, like, West. He's so fucking smart. I don't know if they've captured that yet. Maybe that's coming.

It's hard to imagine Jerry West doing everything Jerry West does in the first two episodes. episodes, right? I just think that like if Solomon uses bad in the show, the show is almost like it breaks because the suspension of disbelief goes out of the win. No, it becomes like jaws where you're just like cutting around the

terrible shark that right. But Bill, so like just think of other people who have like these reputations right. Like Bill Belichick. Yeah. The the Tailua football. Yeah.

Like these stories about Bill being this fun, funny, like really cool dude, they're always out there. Like, as much as he plays up the, you know, curmudgeonly shit in public, they're out there.

With Kareem, he doesn't talk to anybody. And I was, I think Jeff Perlman did, I think he did Lebitard. And he was talking about the process of writing this book. And he said, Kareem has the world's worst publicist. He doesn't do shit. He's a gatekeeper. It's more than a publicist. Because he has

this gatekeeper who is just horrible, doesn't get the game. Kareem is way more interesting than anything we've gotten. So it's either we deal with the Kareem that we've gotten, or they make this dude up out of whole cloth. Like, I don't know. That's why I'm not mad at this Solomon Hughes, brother. I feel like he would have at least one scene where he's,

because he's such a smart guy. There has to be the one scene where for three minutes, I'm like, oh, Kareem's fucking smart. And we haven't had that yet. They've had him, just seen him reading books and stuff like that. He's been kind of isolated too. Like it's a lot of like him at his house, him out here, him being away from the team.

And I think given what we know about what happens with the 7980 Lakers, like he's going to come a little bit more into the fold. Obviously, I mean, well, who knows with this show? They might say the Lakers sweep the Sixers. I don't. I don't really like what much actually are they going to obey everything. So when I did, I talked to Max Bornstein on the watch a while back. And he was like, there are definitely like moments that happen in the first season that feel like. You know, they're kind of like Luke lighting on lightsaber moments.

Like Pat Riley is going to put the gel in his hair this season and stuff. Did you see like when he did the like he sort of tried it out? Yeah. The little fake out. I was like, oh, there. Oh, okay. But I was curious how you guys were feeling about the pacing. So we're, we're what, five, six episodes in.

And Westhead's just taken over, which the Lakers, I think they were like 11 and 4 when that happened. So like there's a few episodes left. We know what happens to the team this season, but do you think we're going to the finals this season? Do you think the season ends with them beating winning? That's a really good question. I'm just happy that it's already leaked that season two is happening. So I don't have to like really be too depressed about it

because they're going, they're being really deliberate about a lot of this stuff. And the amount of scenes say that's dedicated to magic shoe deal. Like you didn't like you could have had like one or one scene to do that right and to get that over with or maybe a scene and a half where it's like intro and closer. But they gave that so much time and energy like so the way that was awesome. Yeah it was. I let just stop it on that for one second like I don't love the McKay device sometimes with the stare at the camera. I can come and go with it.

I thought they was used the best film night. The film night thing was really cool. Every single moment with Phil Knight was fantastic. Anyway, we'll ask her how to interrupt the day. No, they're going really slow. That's what Chris is at. Like, I'm not panicked because I know there's a lot more episodes to go. We won't get them this season, but we're going to get stuff.

Oh, interesting. My take is I think this ends with the playoffs and the finals. And that we have four episodes left. We've done a lot of work already. It gets to the point we're at. Westhead took over. And I think they can pretty much zoom. I don't think anything else major happens

during the regular season. They're going to bring in Larry Bird. Which one? Not during the regular season, no. Right. Well, the Larry Bird, they hinted at that. We got to get to the playoffs. We have to have Spencer Haywood

loses fucking mind, like the guy in the Boogie Knight's house. Who's that guy who hired the guy through the firecrackers? Alfred Molina, the other guy? Yeah, that way to have Alfred Melina. Spencer Haywood's going to go

like full after Melina by the end. And then you have Kareem getting hurt in the finals and you have magic taken over. So you just spoiled the Spencer Haywood breakdown for me, Bill. I didn't even know that was something that happens. Was, let me tell you something. I didn't come close to spoiling it.

Yeah. It was a movie trailer where you saw one snippet of who was going to be Spider-Man, that's it. It's unspoilable. If we had Twitter, when this happened, they would have had to put Twitter on a SpaceX rocket and launch it in space. Yeah, wow. It would be too.

Wow. Yeah. How about that guy, Wood Harris, by the way? Great. Can I just say a little long in the tooth. A little bit. Yeah, I will to say. I'm going to look that up as he's age.

He's your age. Is he? He's older. He's 52, yeah. Oh, man. He's older and he's, you're not six feet. I don't think Wood Harris is six feet tall. Is he like he's, like, he has one at six foot three in Wikipedia.

He's no. The thing is that like in any given scene, it's Wood Harris. or Sally Field or Gabby Hoffman or still, it's even all the Gurgis who plays the business manager. It's just like,

it's so crazy how many good actors they have in this. I was, I was reading, he's three weeks younger than me, just that way. I was reading a bunch of Philadelphia Inquirer stuff

from the, from the 79, 80 season because Philly was covering this a lot because McKinney, McKinney was a St. Joe's coach. Okay, so there's all this, the Philly angle on this,

like everything is like, over St. And Joe's coach, coaching the Lakers. And Westhead is from the South. Yeah, right. And the stuff about what, like, the way that Bus sounds in his quotes, if we had an owner like this now, like it was like Jim Ursay times 150,000. Like the stuff about like the coaching changes and everything is so wild to imagine

owners just holding impromptu press conferences like this. And he was on the road of not that crazy side. I know. There's a sports illustrated feature about him in 1979. And there's two paragraphs when he's talking about

like the ladies that would like, I don't even know what would happen. I think people would just wander out to the streets crying. Like, so triggered. You just can't even believe it.

And he was like one of the nicer ones out of like all the craig, we had like Steinbrenner and like some full-fledged lunatics running teams. Anyway Hold on, Bill, I want to ask you about Westhead. Yeah.

Because the way he's being sort of portrayed in the show is like He's in over his head. He's an ineffectual academic in this show. Well, he, I think that's how it turns out. Was that his reputation? Like, what were people thinking about this dude in real time? Do you remember? Like, do you remember him getting fired?

Do you remember what, like, the, how people, like, sort of felt about his position in this whole thing. So my memories, because I mean basketball was barely on television that year. That's another thing. I don't know if they've fully presented,

but like it wasn't like we had all these opportunities to watch the Lakers. I just think Magic was on there. You'd get Sports Illustrated every once in a while and they might have a Lakers piece. We knew the coach changed, but who, you know, there's no infrastructure for us

to even have a conversation about it back then. So I didn't know that much. Most of my Westhead's comes from however Stam's book breaks in the game, which is the greatest sports book of all time. And he really dove into this season, Magic Kareem, and then the McKinney-Westhead relationship, because Jack Ramsey was kind of peripherally involved with that stuff too.

And what happened to Westhead and McKinney as Westhead basically, you know, not to spoil the ending, but they win the title. Westhead's the coach. And just how that, so that was the only thing I really knew about it until Pearlman's book. We did a 30 for 30 with him about his Loyola Maramette stuff and his team and it was called The Guru of Go, I think, which kind of dove into how artsy he was. Yeah.

But I don't know if this was a guy meant for the NBA, Chris, especially the cocaine-era NBA. Yeah. Well, the thing that I love so much about the basketball stuff on the show is how much of it is still happening. Like between guys being like, I need to get my ISO plays and need to have like plays that feature me where I'm the number one option to even the tension between like having a bunch of ball handling playmakers

on the floor but still needing to like emphasize Kareem. And that like this idea that you can't go full showtime yet because Kareem still needs to be featured in the post. That was all true. It gets worse. But it's like it's like just this is like watching the jazz now or like watching

any number of teams where you're like I don't know if these two guys got laid again. Ben Simmons and Joella and Bean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's though with the magic thing, there was that... Tatum and Brown. We did wonder with magic, like, what position he was.

I do, like, remember that where he was such an awesome college player, but as a pro, it was like, well, they have Norm Nixon. What's that mean? You're playing together. And then he had game six, and there were no more magic conversations. But yeah, with Westhead, he coached the Bulls after the Lakers for like a year, went to Louis Lema, Merrimount, then had that Hank Gathers, that Boe-Kibble, that whole, then that was the whole thing.

And then he came back and did that crazy Denver team. You guys remember that, right? Yes, yes. Wow, you would love that team. They were like, we don't care about defense. We're going to outscore you. And they would lose like 170 to 102 and that didn't work in that bomb. Oh, so they were the Jalen Green of that era.

Gotcha. They jail and greened it. No, but I was doing fantasy basketball that year and we would take these Denver guys, you know. Who was the, it was the old Impali Nis who had like 35 and 20 every night? No, I remember Walter Davis was on that team and he might have average, I'm doing this off memory, but he might have averaged like 24, 25 a game. And he was like semi-wash.

But that, uh, that's altitude, man. So that was it. Westhead, it's one of the weirder careers. Can we talk about Siegel though? Yeah. Yeah. Chris, what happened with your Siegel stock? Because I know you kept it this whole time.

It's stable. It's skyrocketed or where is it? Well, it's just like when you're on a sitcom for 10 years, that money is safe. You know what I mean? You can just kind of bundle that away into life insurance or whatever you want. And then he kind of dicked around for a couple of years. And I think after, oh, God, I'm blanking on the Milakunis comedy. Oh, forget Sarah Marsh.

Yeah, they were at a resort or whatever. Yeah, like that movie. I thought he was going to be this, like, huge star, like, huge movie star, like the next big Apatow guy to break. And he sort of has kind of been in and out doing like, Like, he did a show on AMC a couple of years ago, but, like, this is, this is great. It's great to see him in, like,

an adult role in an adult show and getting to go up against, I mean, I like Siegel, but Brody, to me, is unbelievable in this show. Yeah, let's talk about him one second. The Siegel, I had him on a pod before the pandemic. Yeah. And it got the sense, like, he definitely one of those,

I flew too close to the sun guys and was pretty aware about it, right? He was on probably the last huge sitcom, that was of its kind that we've had with like people in their 20s and then the Apatown movies I think he looked like a guy who was like all right I need to step back reevaluate what kind of try

I'm sure he loves being on the show West had 1991 Denver Nuggets scored 119.9 points a game gave up 130.8 that's a tough net rating they had Michael Adams 26 and a half a game

Orlando Woolridge, 25. Walter Davis, 18.7. Reggie Williams from Georgetown, 16.1. Yeah, it was a complete mess. So there you go. What do you think of Brody was as Riley? You know, it's tough because, like, because of my age, I don't know any other Riley besides cool, like,

brings on the table. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know any other Riley. So watching him be this goofy video. guy with terrible, with a terrible haircut, it's kind of jarring for me. So, like, it's just a different experience. Like, I didn't see Pat Riley become this, you know, like, for instance, like you think about someone like Dirk Novitsky, right? Like, I remember skinny-ass, doofy-ass Dirk. And then, of course, he, you know, the middle part of that. And then Miami

finals 2011, like, I was there for all of it. With Riley, it was just, I wasn't even there for Lakers, Riley. I was there for Knicks, Riley. Right. Right. And then goes to the heat on a fax, Riley, right? And then becomes this legend, this God. So, like, this is pretty cool to see,

to even think of Pat Riley as something other than what he's ultimately become. That's been my experience with this. This seems to be me. I believe it, Chris. You're not buying it? I think they dial some stuff up on this show. I really doubt that. I doubt that there was a slub.

No, I doubt that there was a moment in the last 55 years where Pat Riley wasn't fucking cool and handsome. I just don't believe. This is very close to your Sinatra is cool take. Like you're just like, there's no possible. It's not very close. It's an adjacent cousin. But I'm just telling you, I think some people,

you don't like belatedly become one of the coolest handsome guys like when you're like 41. Like you have to, there has to be pieces of it. I still thought they overdid it, but now it feels like he's settling. You could seem sizing up Siegel now and the whole thing. The scene where Siegel comes in

wearing like his squash whites, or just tennis whites, and Riley's like pouring him a cup of Cuervo and they're just like chat. I love that. And that was like you can kind of already see though in that scene. Riley is more chill. Riley is kind of like, yeah, you know,

I kind of have like a more of like a better grip on this. And Westhead's like quoting Shakespeare and kind of all over the place and stuff. And it's it may not be completely accurate characterizations, but I think it works for the show. Before we go, a question for wise. A question for both of you. Is there enough cocaine in this show? No. I feel like cocaine should be one of the top ten characters.

It should just be everywhere because I think that's what it was like in LA. I think cocaine was not just basketball. I think in celebrity culture and nightclub culture I think cocaine the same way like coffee is everywhere now where it's like oh you got a Starbucks Bill is not a thought

I think it was like Starbucks was This shit is documented Everybody of the time says that's what it was like It wasn't a thing It was no different than smoking cigarettes drinking alcohol You were doing cocaine

Like this isn't This isn't theoretical This is the facts of that time. So yeah, no, I'm definitely with you. Definitely need more cocaine. They've done enough with the prostitution. I think we've done enough of that.

We're good. But I think we're good there. They've HBOed it up on that side. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Chris, maybe a couple more bumps for you. I feel like we're in 79 right now. Yeah.

We have the 80s to go. Like, I'm not counting my chickens before they get high on cocaine. Fair. I'll tell you this. The Richard Pryor, that extended cameo from him. It's nice. It really wet my appetite for a little more. Like, I'm ready for Robin Williams.

I'm ready for Debbie Harry. Yeah. You know, like, let's keep it going. Mike actually was supposed to play Richard Pryor in a biopic. Yeah. I don't know if that ended up happening or not, but that's, I thought that was interesting because that was something he was like tapped to do at one point. I don't know if he got shelved.

I don't know if they ever even started production. but that was a thing at one point. I'm ready for Bill Cosby to come in and be really judgmental. I want more Nicholson. I think we got to do more Nicholson. Nicholson has to, it's almost like they're afraid. They're using him as, you know, like Shark from Jaws style. They're just, he's kind of over here.

I don't know if we ever get into that. Exactly. What do we think happens with Jeannie Buss over these last four episodes? They're just paving the way, but it is what it is? Well, you know, when the people started crowing about the historical inaccuracies, they were like she didn't start working for the team until 88. Yeah. So obviously the shows decided they're carving their own Ginny Bus thing. I think she's just going to be that lady's number two.

She's just going to have to ascend to the right-hand woman, if you will. To Clark Rothman, yeah. Yeah, like that just seems like the obvious choice because she's coming up with good ideas. She's clearly got the owner's ear. So it only makes sense that that would happen. Yeah, I don't know. Actually, I think that might be the shakiest. It'll be fascinating to see because you could,

if you really wanted to shake things up with this show, like there's a world in which it could skip ahead to 87 in the next season. Do you know what I mean? I think you have to get, I mean, there's some good meat on the bone the next couple of years because you have magic gets hurt in his second year, comes back, super unhappy. he wants to do contract.

Everybody turns on him. So I think Magic will be a much better character in your team. But they're not, like, they don't have to. I saw, like, when this first show was first coming out and there was some chatter about, like, the show could go to. But would they jump around? Well, they could go to the LeBron era. Like, you could go through Shack and Kobe.

You could go through, like, you could have Phil be a character. Like, you could basically do this last. Oh, my God. If they have, if they do the Shack and Kobe era, somebody's going to have to hose down Waz. That'll be like, is that? Is that your number one dream TV show that would ever happen? No.

I don't know how you would cash jack. No, my dream TV show would definitely be the Hedels. That would be the dream for me. Like, because again, like some of the same ideas, by the way, except in Miami. Yes. That makes it a lot of freaking fun. Sadly, less cocaine. Less cocaine, but at the same time, I think LeBron and,

and D. Wade have been a lot better at covering their tracks than athletes were that came before them. There was no track covering in 1979. But the thing is about that Heedles team, and even later, you know, once you even get to the Kobe Powell teams, is by that point, sports media is so prevalent that, like, there's not a lot of, like, undocumented moments. Yeah, you know, you can have the moment in Beijing where those guys are deciding that they're going to play together or something like that. Like, there are moments that aren't captured on camera. But that's what the decision did was make it into a reality show in a lot of ways. So the thing that's cool about what we're seeing now is, like, this idea that you're in the nightclub with these guys. Like, that would be insane if, like, you saw the Lakers sitting together in a nightclub now.

Everybody would be. But I don't even know how big of a deal it would have been. Yeah. Because you think, like, they're taped laying games. It's starting from 1982 to 1986, they stopped even making basketball carts. Yeah. And I love the league as much as anybody I knew. And I barely had anyone to talk about it with

because it was everybody like football and baseball and hockey. The question I basically have, though, is like, you know, I thought this show was going to be a blockbuster. It's doing okay. It got renewed for a second season. I was like, oh, they'll just do a season per season or like they'll just kind of like chop it up into many eras. But the 80s showtime is going to be the first couple of seasons of this show.

It wouldn't shock me if, to like shake things up a little bit. They did a time jump in the next season. Not, I don't have to be, obviously. Are you, Will, do you report in this? No, I'm just, I'm saying, I'm saying, you plug in the HBO. I mean, come on.

Damn. No, I'm just saying like, wouldn't you, if you were like next season, I mean, the next season would be amazing because there's all this stuff that's going, that goes on in the coaching race. I think 81 and 82 could be combined into the second season. And then maybe you jump. Right.

But you're, You're going to get mad if they skip over the Celtics teams. Oh, I'm sure they will. The Celtics have been treated horribly on this show. Right our back. Might as well made him a dictator. Larry Bird looks like this. Absolutely asshole.

He was like a mute when he played back then. I walk past people, grown men crying. And I'm like, what's wrong, sir? And they're like, I'm just, I can't get over how the Celtics are being depicted and winning time. Oh, my goodness. It's an outrage. And I've sent my protest letters. I don't like it, especially the Larry Bird thing.

Like he literally didn't speak his rookie year. He probably said 50 words total. So to make him like this, you know, Johnny Lawrence type guy, like, what are we doing? But whatever. It's a TV show. All right. Was, great to see you. We might have to do this again, right?

Episode 7 is really good. I'd have to do this again. Let's make it happen. Chris Ryan, still cracking out the watch. You got it. Jesse Lopez produced this podcast. Thanks for doing that on short notice, Jesse. Sorry about the Kershaw.

Perfect game. That wasn't. We will see on the Prestige TV podcast later this week. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need.

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