The Prestige TV Podcast - Recapping Episode 8 of ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty’

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Wosny Lambre recap Episode 8 of HBO’s ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.' They discuss the factual inaccuracies of the show, Dr. J’s portrayal, HBO clapping back at Jerry West, and more. Hosts: Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Wosny Lambre Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now through May 6th, Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Welcome to the Prestige TV podcast. My name is Bill Simmons here with Wisdom Lambert and Chris Ryan. Since we covered winning time last week, there's been a lawsuit. Things have peded up. We talked about some of the factual inaccuracies.

I called the show a kind of a factual white liar, nothing that serious. And apparently Jerry West disagreed. He felt it was very serious. He's like going full to kill a mockingbird. He's like, I'm taking this all the way to the Supreme Court. He's like, I've never thrown a golf club, but then HBO has stuff today. Page 68 of your autobiography. Multiple broken clubs.

So, yeah, look, this show we just had, they have. Episode A, California Dreaming, tied into this. It's a lot of white lies. It's nothing like too major. It doesn't really, I mean, I don't know if Jerry Buss was, you know, sticking his face into the name's chest. I don't know if that happened, but some white lies. That was a strange.

Yeah, that was awkward. I wasn't sure how to, that was a weird. I wasn't sure how we were supposed to interpret that scene. If the goal was to make us uncomfortable with Dr. Buss's sexuality, mission accomplished. Yeah. I mean, he's just, he was ready to get it on

in all times, apparently. The cross-cutting back to the mom. It's like in case you needed an edible image, it's right there. Sally Field with the bald cap with the then crew cut cancer haircut over it because she all of a sudden had the elongated for it.

The big quad in this one was Jack McKinney trying to get his job back, which I know people are on the internet and there wasn't a lot of stuff on the internet about this except for 1980s sports illustrated in May about how he wasn't coming back. I also have the books because I have every basketball book ever and I went through the books. I went through winning time, which was a Scott Osler, Steve Springer book in 1986 that had a lot of Lakers info. Pearlman had his book that they based a lot of

this from. There's just no evidence that any of this McKinney stuff really happened. Like he wasn't on the road with the team until a month later. By all counts from his family was really worried about him. He had balance issues. He had memory issues. And I don't think anyone around him felt like he was ready to come back. This show makes it seem like he's got his shit together. There's like that scene in the diner. Yeah, where he forgets the guy's name.

Yeah, and it's like, okay, maybe he doesn't have a shit together. But for the most part, it seems like he does. And he's very, very wary of Pat Riley, which there's also no evidence of. And it just sets up this whole, these two guys are stealing this guy's job. I personally don't think this happened. What did you think, Wes? Obviously, I don't think it happened quite as the show does, but for me it sets up like some great conflict, right?

Yeah. Like, I guess we're supposed to believe that Riley's explaining to him, like, you need to take the reins of this so that we can have success, which to me means, like, I can get a real job off of this success. Not that I want your job, but like being the lead assistant for a team that has great success, will position me to get my own head coach a job probably elsewhere. This makes sense for both of us to want this, right?

And so it sets up, like, I like, I personally like conflict. I like all the conflict in the show. I like Magic and Kareem's conflict. I like Cookie and Magic's conflict. I like Dr. Bus and his daughter and his employees and his business partners. they're just setting up all kinds of internal dynamics that I think work, right? Like professionally, it makes sense that a guy that's ambitious as Riley is. And, you know, he has a decent amount of self-confidence that he would be trying to achieve things.

And like, this is an opportunity that he's like, I'm not going back to being Chick-Herns-Lacky, right? Like, this is something that I feel like I'm good at, that I feel like I can excel at. and then I absolutely need to be pursuing. The factual stuff, again, like, you know, people on the internet and people online were just, like, going a little nuts. I think Jeff Perlman is still on the, you know, the rampage about defending this show. I'm over it. I think the show is justified. Like, they've set it up where all of this stuff is justified.

You understand why everybody is doing what they do. You understand their motivations. historically inaccurate but dramatically true, right? And I think that's okay. It's interesting because, like, I was reading a little bit about this too, Bill. Like, Silver Screen and Roll has been doing these recaps where they're just basically, like, they're going back through, like, Lakers history. And I was reading a little bit about, like, how the McKinneys and the Westheads used to be, like, really close, like, the two couples.

And that then they stopped hanging out because it was based, I think Cassie, I can't remember, I guess it was Westead. Yeah. Yeah, she was like, there's only. much time you can spend apologizing for something that's good for your family and stuff. And I was like, God, I wish that was in the show. And maybe it will be. Yeah. So there was obviously some tension there. But ultimately, like, you've got to communicate to a mass audience, like what's going on. And to do that, you need to put McKinney on the road with these guys following them around Philadelphia, kind of lurking in the background.

I doubt there were as many team-wide social functions where, like, Jack McKinney's just holding Spencer Haywood's baby. And there's like all this like gossip going around. party while they're watching the All-Star game. But it really works dramatically. And when you have Letts, Brody, and Siegel doing the scenes and pissing themselves and forgetting themselves and having explosions and crushing cores cans, it's just really, really like pretty gripping television. By the way, Bill, you know what that was?

That was a succession scene. When they get everybody in the place together. That's a great point. And when Spencer, Heywood is outside talking to McKinney and he's looking, peering through the window at Pat Riley, aka Adrian Brody, like that is so amazing and effective. That's a dope scene to me, even though, of course, that probably never happened in real life. Yeah, but, I mean, in real life, like Spencer Haywood was pretty much off on his own,

just doing cocaine for this entire year. They've hinted at it. They finally brought out the pipe, but I think it was probably worse than this. look, it's a TV show. I'm fine with it. It's just, it's so tough to watch this with sports when we know what actually happened. There's no other experience like this. Here's my take.

I think they're intentionally messing up some of the factual stuff because I think they know it would drive conversation week to week. Yes. It's like this is like pretty blatant where you could just look this up and go, he wasn't on the road for another month. Oh, that Philly game was a one point loss, you know? And Magic had a great game. played pretty well and came off great. And Dr. Jay wasn't that good. They had the same amount of points.

The Rock the Baby Dunk is like three years later. The Rock Baby Dubs three years later. It was over Michael Cooper, not magic. But I almost feel like they kind of like this stuff because it gets people keep talking. When you think about it, like this show probably shouldn't have been 10 episodes. Probably should have been eight. And if you need like, all right, episode eight, what's our transition episode to get us toward the playoffs? I need to start getting this coach confit.

well, that does nap later. No, no, we need it now. We need something now. There's nothing going on now. And they moved the coach conflict up. Because it was a conflict. He wanted his job back. And nobody around him thought he should have the job back.

Chris, is Bill growing his Kyrie third eye doing it for the clicks? Yeah. This is all about like the Discovery Warner merger. The Illuminati. To distract us from the fact that, no, I think what they're doing is creating an alternate history, an alternate reality where they're having their, there is the NBA season that happened 79 to 80, and then there is the winning time season that happened 79 to 80. Just like there is the winning time version of Jerry Buss and the winning time version of magic

and everything and the winning time version of Bird. And I think that as long as you're okay with that, that's fine. Like, it is like, it's, I got to stop looking at basketball reference because I think that ruins a show for you. I kind of enjoy it. I've actually, it's added to the show because I like seeing how blatantly they don't give a shit about it. Right. Because, like, didn't they just mess with, like, how many games they had played and how many days up after the Boston game? One of the things I read, they said, by the chronology of the show, they played 27 games in 37 days. Yeah. Which would, I think, would have been a scheduling problem.

I think Spencer Haywood would have had a hard time. Then you could kind of understand why he was driven to maybe do more cocaine. I mean, you could argue the most egregious mistake in the show was making believe that Spencer Haywood. was alone with a baby for a day? It was 1980. Maybe. The rules were a little different. Chris,

how did you feel about how Philly was portrayed? The diner with the Phillies poster in the background. That felt pretty accurate. I don't know. Jack McKinney was a college basketball legend around Philadelphia. So it made sense that they were like, can I get your picture and stuff like that? And that it was going up next to Rocky,

maybe, Imagine there would be some... 80 was a good Philly year. Yeah. It was a great Philly year. Yeah. A year and a half after Rocky 2, he still has the title. I'll say this.

Philly's making a run. Philly came off better than Boston in this episode. Yeah. Yeah. True. Big diner culture in Philly, by the way, which I think they nailed like these dudes absolutely in their time off in Philly, as Philly guys would have been eating head of...

Crushing some BLTs, yeah. 100%. But, you know, to get back to the taking of liberty because it is such a central part of the show. I think they're getting the characters right. Me too. They're getting Kareem's role. His character and the story of the Lakers in their rise, right.

They're getting Dr. Buss's character right. Even if the interiorities of these guys' lives is a little, you know, made for TV. Like, Dr. Jay's role, like I was listening to Jackie talk to Ryan the other day on the Rosillo show. and she's like, Dr. Jay absolutely was the guy who called young people, gave them his number, gave them advice, took them in, helped them out. Was this gregarious guy generous with his time, his wisdom, his knowledge? Like, he absolutely was that person. And then I watched the show and that's how they portray him.

Yeah. Okay, he didn't dunk on Magic's head afterwards. Maybe I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't give him relationship advice, to be honest. Some sage relationship advice at that. But like, they're getting Dr. Jay's character right. Like, he is, he was magic's hero. He was sort of this pillar of, you know, this transition from whatever the NBA was in the 70s to what Magic and Bird would then turn it into, which basically gives us the modern NBA that we have now. So, like, he's this connective tissue.

And the show shows this, like, he's a legend, but he's also dunking on Magic's head. He's a contemporary, too. I think they're doing a great job at that stuff. Yeah, all the magic stuff in this episode where it was about people trying to get in on the ground floor of what is obviously going to be a rocket ship. And it's like stern, you know, Matt, Dr. Jay,

cookie, but then the best scene for me was actually, I actually really liked the Jerry West scene at the end. Me too. You know what I mean? And Jerry West coming in and being like, okay, this guy is a killer. Yeah, but also being like, I know that you have like, you smile all the time, but the thing that you are a tortured winner

just like me and like I was wrong about you. I thought it was like a really good, that was a really good scene. I kind of redemptive for this Jerry West character that obviously has been sort of the most contentious part about the like, is this accurate or not because Jerry West apparently is going to be arguing in front of John Roberts whether or not like

this was true or not. But I really thought that that and then the theme overall of the episode of just the amount of stress these guys are under. And just just to be a stress that everybody in the organization is under from bus to Westhead having a kidney stone and basically not even realizing it, McKinney trying to recover, Pat Riley hanging on by his fingernails to his career. It just actually did a really good job depicting how fucking hard this must be to like what it means to win and

be a successful franchise and what the consequences are if you're not. Yeah, I like the last scene too. I thought that was really good. And my two favorite things about this episode were that last scene and just how they kind of captured what Dr. Jay meant, basically what was laid out, because the three biggest guys in the 70s were him and Kareem and Marevich, who really was just playing on two shit teams and had no person out. He was basically a mute. So Dr. Jay took this, especially he was the reason they had the merger. He was the guy they all looked up to.

He was the guy that everybody in Magic's Generation wanted. wanted to be. And he was fucking cool. And he remains cool. He was cool after he retired. He's still. I've seen him an All-Star Weekend in the 2000s, 2010s. Guess what he's fucking cool. He came to a podcast at Grantland. He was fucking cool. We're all in all of them. He's like 6-6. His hands are the size of my arms. And he's just magnetic. And I thought... Long Island legend, by the way, Chris. Yeah, I know. The thing is, I'm not sure about the actor. This show takes a little bit of liberty with the age of the actors playing. Like, Dr. J is probably like 31 in this season.

That guy's like 45. And Wood Harris is 52 playing Spencer Haywood with this weird patched out beard. I don't know why they did that. I thought Wood was good this episode though. Like I thought Wood getting... You liked his pokey moment? Yeah, but I'm more like I liked him like

kind of zoning out and getting in his feelings about Pat Riley in that moment where he's got the baby on it. And you could just tell this is just a dude who's just like, you know, and that idea that these role players would basically like be asked to sacrifice for the team and they made, like,

that was a huge sacrifice because if you didn't get your numbers, you wouldn't get that contract and nothing was really guaranteed back then. Like that's pretty like, it's pretty harrowing to think about like what it must have been like back in the Wild West days with contract and stuff like that.

The only thing, what did you think about, um, how do you feel about David Stern? I like the way they're setting him up because he's always been one of, your greatest foils. Yeah, yeah.

How do you feel about what's happening with Stern right now? I wish he was a little more interesting as an actor. I feel like the way to play it would have been, you know, you're immediately suspicious of him. Would have been, you know what I mean? Like, he should almost have been like a godfather character. Like he should have had like a Barzini type of energy to him. And I don't know, they just make them seem pretty average.

I forget which one of you was talking about the stress that those guys wanted. I guess both of you were. Yes, Chris. You know, I got to say, like, in the moment, I don't know if the stress was, I think the stress was more the travel. But when you think about it, like the league was in the worst spot it's probably been in the last 50 years at this point. Not a lot of the games are on television. And they're playing in front of half full arenas. And a lot of it was just a grind of like, you know, flying sometimes.

like connecting fights and shit like that. That's the part. I'm curious why they didn't try to capture a little bit more. Because you'd actually think the sport was bigger in 1980 than I actually think it was. I think it was big in a couple cities like Boston. But Philly wasn't selling out back then. Philly was like 11,000. You can even go to the playoff games back then.

They were sold out. So I don't know. Season two's already been picked up. Right. It feels like they're setting up. the story, and maybe in later seasons, they can get into the nitty-gritty of it all because they're not really getting into

the intricacies of NBA life. Yeah, right now. I kind of wish they did, though. A lot of it is big, me too. I care about that more than some of these other parts. They've decided to go with this, there's 10 main characters, and if you're doing that,

like, you're just going to never really spend that much in-depth time. Like, as long as they're still cutting to a cookie scene or cutting to a Jesse bus scene or a Jeannie bus scene. And there's nothing wrong with those plot lines. I'm just saying like, the more time you spend outside of the locker room and outside of the team dynamic,

the last time you're going to have to be like, this is the intricacies. I thought it was interesting that Bus bought his mom a TV because I thought that would have been very representative of like, okay, so like they're starting to figure out that this is a good game, this is a good sport for TV. And that like there are stars and like people want to watch this and you can monetize it.

You can commercialize it. And there's a little bit of that in the background of like Stern and Phil Knight are the early guys recognizing where this thing is going. And it almost would have been like there's like a there's like a super pumped of Stern and Phil Knight, you know, like in the season. But yeah, I think that you're right. Like they've they've probably shied away from really getting too much into like what was the context of this sport in the national kind of tapestry of entertainment at the time. And it gets worse because it really bottoms out in 82. But this, we're all leading to the finals, Game 6, Magic's famous game, which was tape delayed on the East Coast. Like, I didn't watch it because I was asleep.

I found out what happened in the morning. One of the things I liked, and it was very subtle, but I wish they had really gone with it. They had the guy playing Larry O'Brien, the commissioner at the time, who is a world-class bozo as a commissioner. I had a lot of fun with him in my book. how bad he was. Like this guy, just every single decision he made was absolutely terrible and was looking the other way constantly cocaine and all this stuff. But they had him briefly in this and he had like the most yellow teeth and just seemed like

such, he almost seemed like the guy in Shawshank who's the dude's roommate who admits that he killed the banker and his wife. And he just has that like scary face. And I was like, oh, if they dip into Larry O'Brien, this could be good. Maybe they're planting the seed for that. but because he was just a world-class bozo. So that would be fun. And the freaking,

the comedian basically performing a roast at the luncheon. Right. I believe that. NBA All-Stars. That was incredible. Speaking, hold on, just to dip back into a historical stuff.

Yeah. Did Magic get Cookies' best friend pregnant for real? Do we have the facts on that? Well, so he got somebody pregnant, but I think they changed the name. Okay. He has a son that he, his son Andre, who I think worked for him for a long time.

He's the only kid he didn't have a cookie. But I don't think it was how it goes down in this show. I think they took some liberties, but within the vortex of what happened. So I think they're okay. Bill, do you know anything about whether or not Larry O'Brien was so clearly into bird over magic and was like, this is the kid right here? I mean, obviously, like... Yeah, it's funny.

I don't... I just remember being the moment as a kid. And obviously it was very bird-centric in the Boston area. But it always felt like they were linked. It always felt like they were linked. It never felt like one guy. It was always the Magic Man and the Birdman. And it was always Brent Musburger,

just trying to get one of those two teams on CBS. We were really in the early days of nicknames back then. Oh, yeah. It's the Durant Man versus the Janus Man. But they knew they had something with magic because, you know, we talked about this one of the last shows. but the personalities and the best players were pretty lacking, except for Dr. Jay.

And even Dr. Jay, as, you know, as amazingly eloquent and just charismatic as he was, he wasn't exactly magic. Magic was the first guy that came in who was, like, larger than, like. Yeah, but Jackie's pot about magic on icons was really cool because it talked about how Dr. Jay was the first one to really understand the endorsements in terms of, like, how they could be partnerships and how you could sort of, start to really get your money out of that, like, rather than just letting them use your likeness,

like you could really start to like partner with companies and start to make a lot more money that way. I was thinking this was when Halberstein was writing breaks of the game this season, that that would have been fun to have him just wondering. I wish there were more cameos. Like, I still love the Richard Pryor cameo. Me too. I wish there was more, like, if you're just going to get liberal with stuff,

like, just have like Jamal Wilkes, who, by the way, I don't know what Jamal Wilkes did to the writers, but he's just not in this at all. Who's the best part of the team? But have one of those guys be like, hey, I'm going to the set of Caddy Shack today. And now it's like Bill Murray and Chevy Chase. It's the gardener scene.

It's like, why not? We're going to start, you know, getting rowdy. Let's really dip into the 80s. And again, not enough cocaine yet again, was my other note for this episode. Never enough. I really liked how like the early trade rumors start with just like three guys in a room,

then it leaves the room. and then it's like, where the fuck told these guys? But it's like the early version of Wojian Shams stuff where it's just like... That was Peter Vessy back then. I mean, they could have made him a character pretty easily. He was especially on this with the... What did he have like a New York Post column?

Yeah, his New York Postcom. The two people were him and Bob Ryan had the Sunday Notes column for the Globe. And that was kind of where most of the information came from and they would get... But, you know, like, I couldn't read Vessie's calm. I sort of knew about it, but it was only for people in New York.

But I think that's where a lot of the rumors came from. Wood Harris's face when he's like, rumors. Like, he literally can't even understand where a rumor would start or how it was spread. Like, he's completely like, what? Whereas, like, rumors is just everything in basketball coverage now. I know. You know, kind of to his detriment. Well, they were way more transparent about it back then, too, because they, it would just come out.

Like, yeah, we almost traded you to Philly for so-and-so. And that would just be in a newspaper. Yeah. And then that would be it. It wasn't. their infrastructure was like it is now. Bill Spencer Hayward for McAdoo, who says no?

Oh my God. I got excited just the trade machine possibilities that got brought up. The funny thing is Hey, why did we never invent classic trade machine

where you could go around like, there's still time. Well, I was thinking more along the lines of Chris Ryan for PFT. Who says no? I need traffic. That's very viable. The thing with Spencer Haywood was he was the year before, I mean, he was hurt, but he's still in the games he played for Utah.

He was like 24 and 10. Like he was a real guy. And they traded Dantley for him, who was a real guy. It would be the equivalent of who's like a third or fourth year, really good score now. Like he was like better than John Collins. Like Miles Bridges or something? Yeah, it was like, I was just about to say Miles Bridges, yeah. I have some predictions for next episode because we know it's,

going to end with the finals and all that stuff, right? But they still have next episode to give Prisky with. First one, Magic joins the Argo operation and helps free the hostages in Iran. I mean, technically, it could have happened at the same timeline. No? You like that one, Chris? I love it. The game actually goes to Iran or it just goes to where the two Hollywood producers were and helps them come up with the plan. I think he does a cameo on the film that Ben Affleck's making. Yeah. Jack McKinney kills a guy. That's all I have.

I'm still workshopping it. What do you think was? Just kills the guy. Just weaves in the traffic, just runs over some bicycle. It all comes around. He kills a bicycle. So that is in line with the way I feel like they're portraying Bird. Like at some point, Larry Bird is going to call Magic the N-word.

That's the direction, though, they're taking the bird character. Seriously. Like, they are making him this cartoonish Hake. It's like Johnny Lawrence Crosswood one of the

deliverance rapists. Like literally a KKK member. Seriously, the way they had taken Byrd right now. How do you think they're going to

handle Kareem missing game six in the finals? I was thinking a kidnapping would be fun. They're going to say that he was working

on an early draft of Reagan's morning in America's speech. I think it's, I think it's interesting that HBO has leaned into the controversy with this stuff, clearly. Like, there was the holler reporters thing today. Parma was doing all these tweets.

And I think their attitude is like the more people talking about this, the better this is for the show. Yeah. I don't think West has a case personally. I think there are more important things maybe to go in further. Damn, that sucks. Because I was really looking forward to the Sotomayor descent bill. Like, how about that's disappointing? I was hoping Jerry could take this all the way.

It would be crazy. Like for season two, instead of toning it down, they went the other way and they insinuate that he was the nightstocker. Completely insane. Was he committing crimes in the L.A. area that we couldn't account for? I don't know. That would be a great troll. I would love if, like, if they pivoted the other way.

And it just became like so, so monotonous and minutiae of, like, day-to-day NBA season stuff. And it's just like, yeah. Jamal got his ankle wrapped today. That was pretty that was pretty much it. Episode four

of winning time season two. Well, I was sitting that book from 19, oh, go, no,

I'm saying like, the funny thing is like the way they've set it up, there's so many things they could do like bottle episodes where it's like,

all right, some guy, some, you know, uh, Jamal Wilkes gets in trouble with the somebody

and the Lakers fixer has to go situated or whatever. Like, there's so many things that can grow out of what they've set up here. And once again, I just really think

it makes the show more fun outside of the hair and the goofy clothes and all of that. And the casual sexism and racism and misogyny and all of that, which is fun. I enjoy it. Like, they've created like a really big

work. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm with Wise. I'm always down with the party. Like as Spencer Hayward, please host more events. Let's go. Yeah. Maybe like an Easter. Easter at Spencer's house, which goes sideways because the turkey burns because he was smoking pipe in the garage. I also want to know what Jack McKinney's neurologist thought when he was like, hey, I'm going to go

to a party at Spencer Haywood's house. That's probably okay for my recovery, right? I'm going to fly to Philly. That should be fine, right? Dude. And again, the stuff that I love is like when they show up to Donald Sterling's house party, instinctively I'm like, uh-oh, what's about to happen? Right.

I have this internal, like, because I know Donald Sterling is, I'm like, oh shit, anything could happen at this house party. That's what I think is the best part about the show, man. Like that, that like limitlessness of it. Well, we need more Donald Sterling. I really hope he pops up. I'll be interested to see how they're making that show about the Doc Rivers, Donald Sterling, and Quippers team. What lessons they learn from winning time, like how far to, you know, get a little ambitious with the facts. The thing I'll be fascinated to see with that one,

because it's going to be so tempting to be like, and there's Blake Griffin, this guy, you know what I mean? Like to have everybody. But Harris? Is there, yeah, when Harris is available. It's just like, will they go very specific about like the investigation, the way he lost the team? Like, how much of a microscope are they going to use?

Because obviously winning time is like the broadest of broad views. And it's got room for, you know, killing James. Yeah, but a lot less witnesses. But it's got Gillian Jacobs still showing up as Chris Riley. Like, it's got, like, so many characters, and almost every one of these people are played by a notable actor. That it's, you know, they want to give them their due time. Mark Stein reports that he was the most upset that Pat Riley sent intern Lon Rosen down to tell Paul West had to call time out in an earlier episode.

He thought that was the most unrealistic scene. I think the people that were there around the league in the 80s seemed to be the most appalled. Like Bob Brian, we could just have them come on and we'll just, we can put our mics on news, just let him go for an hour. He's just furious about, uh, smoke cigarettes while he talks. Guess what, guys. I still enjoy this show.

I love the show. I'm not going to apologize. I still enjoy it. I like going on. I like going on basketball reference after to figure out how true stuff was. I'm still having a good time. Two episodes left. That's it for the prestige TV pod.

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