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

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Wosny Lambre recap the season finale of HBO’s ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.’ They discuss the fabricated plotline of the Finals MVP between Kareem and Magic, how the show relates to today’s NBA, and the possibilities of where the story can go for next season. 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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It's a prestige TV podcast. My name is Bill Simmons. I am here with Big Was and Chris Ryan. We're going to talk about the season finale of winning time. It ended the way we, thought the Lakers won the 1980 NBA title. Not a lot of surprises. Magic Johnson 42, 15, and seven. Were you hoping Boston would sneak one in there? Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know if they were going to say Magic was going to score 100 points. It was a pretty by the book episode,

except for something with the finals MVP that we'll get to down the road. But for the most part, pretty straightforward. We had the big plot of can they win the, can they win game six? We had, and Kareem getting injured. We had the subplots of Jeannie Bus kind of getting screwed over and Spencer Haywood trying to put a hit on the Lakers team. Spencer Haywood and Boogie Knights, yeah. Yeah.

Was, what was your favorite part of this episode? Definitely, Spencer Haywood with his bad news bears crew of would-be hitmen and henchmen. I was like, and there is just no way this crew could get anything done. It was hilarious and when he's like, no, forget it, Kareem got injured. Right. So they're going to need me.

Like, that was, that was enjoyable. That was a good, like, sort of comedic element in an episode that didn't have as much comedy as previous episodes, this one provided some great comic relief. That and Westhead reading Shakespeare in the locker room and Riley just being like, let's go kick their dixon.

What was it? What did you got, Chris? Number one, the brief appearance of Maurice Cheeks in the finals. Number two, Adrian Brody across the board, just like him in the locker room, him going up to Magic at the timeout and being like they voted 60 to 3 against you,

you know, like just to get in his head. I think that was my favorite part. Yeah, I mean, and number three, honestly, is just the fact that this turned into a very traditional sports movie in the last. last two hours of the show. It became a mini sports movie 100%. And just making it like the coach gives the inspirational speeches. Nobody believes in us. We're counted out this crucial energy to our star player, but

somebody's going to step up. Norm Nixon going up to magic and being like, fuck you buck. Like all that stuff is just like straight out of sports book, the sports movie playbook. And you know what? I love that. Goose bumps. Yes. Also, Bill, hold on. I wanted to get your opinion on this because this was my note. why is Larry Byrd hanging out with KKK member? So weird. He's in a time to kill. It's just so weird.

I'm doing this. Everybody has been on the, how could they do this to Jerry West bandwagon for 10 episodes. Where's the Larry Bird outrage? Yeah. What is going on? Is he going to storm the Capitol in season two? Like, what's going to happen?

Damn, Larry. By the way, Larry made $650,000 for his rookie season. I'm pretty sure he wasn't living in like a one-bedroom in French lick with his three buddies and a basketball. He was keeping it real, man. Yeah, I'm sure he updated the barn for sure. I love that they gave him like the worst. It wasn't, it was more than a pimple. It was like a crevice on his face, like to just push it over the top.

I'm outraged by the treatment of Larry Bird. So the big creative decision to get a little drama and to kind of veer away from the facts is how they handled this Kareem Finals MVP thing. This is insane. I have all the things they've done on the show, this was insane. Kareem was told he was going to win the finals MVP and then David Stern, Baiton switched it and magic was in on it. And now we're setting up this Kareem magic tension for season two. None of this happened. But there is Kareem magic tension, right?

There is Kareem magic tension coming, right? There is. But not for this. They didn't switch the finals MVP. I have no idea why they decided to do this. In real life, Kareem, and there's multiple accounts of this, they land from Philly, and Kareem's waiting for them, and he goes on the bus, and he jumps in and mobs the guys. It was like this super happy emotional moment.

I also, I had never, I don't know if this was in Perlman's report. I don't remember from the book, but I thought Kareem was going to play Game 7. He tells Magic, I'm out, I'm not back this series. I find that one hard to believe as well. But,

was, what do you think of the decision to make, use this imaginary finals MVP moment as a way to strum some magic Kareem tension? Well, I get it.

Again, they're dramatizing everything. It's like what they're doing, they're setting up Jeannie against her brothers, which I like. That's that tension. the Magic and Kareem thing, there needs to be some,

you know, they're the main characters, it's going to drive some tension. You know, David Stern being like a tricky little, like, operator, like, frozen envelope guy, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I did like that. I know you did. So, like, they're planting the seeds of, like,

I like it. They're showing you, like, there's a changing of the guard coming. going to be about Kareem and Julius Irving and all of these guys. David Stern is going to take over the NBA. He's going to conspire with magic to turn it into something else. And I love that because the show got kind of meta too when David Stern was explaining the storyline to you.

And like the NBA, why it resonates with people is people understand it through stories. And sure, if we're going to make the magic and Kareem things, some. that's part of the overall arc of the story. I'm fine with it. I don't have a problem with that. They had the roadmap. It happens next year that when they give magic the giant extension and Kareem finds out magic's making more of them.

Chris, why not just go with that? They're just seating. At the same way they're seating, maybe Jeannie being disaffected with like the way she's perceived through by her father and the fact that he brings what is Joey and Jimmy to the game. And I thought that they did a lot of like, those guys were good. The sons were just everything I wanted and more. Great job.

I just think that they were doing a lot of like, let's just like, even there's like a couple of like cutaway shots of like when Riley and Westhead are celebrating. And Riley's kind of like, yeah, next year. And it's like, well, that's next year is when Riley will, you know, we assume he's going to take over. So I just thought that they did a nice job of hinting towards conflicts to come. Because this is where the sports movie is supposed to end is they have the championship. but if the show wants to go on for five or six seasons,

they need to keep things spicy. I just would have had bustone magic. I'm redoing your contract. I'm making you the highest paid player on this team. Forget Kareem or something like that, even would have been more realistic. I also think I love the Bus Brothers was great. Yeah.

I wish if you're going to make Jerry West a caricature and Larry Bird a character and Chick-Hurne, all the liberties they took with people we know, why not turn the bus brothers into like Spalding Smales from Caddyshack combined, you know, multiplied by a hundred. Like one of them should have been like, Dad, I want a popcorn. Like they should have been like stepbrothers. It should have been like Will Ferrell and Jatsy Riley.

They kind of halfway went there wise, but it was, I don't know why they didn't just fully lead into it. I'll say this. It was effective in this main way. It reminded me that Kurt Rambis for some reason is on the hiring board. of the Lakers head coaching search. So like bus family dysfunction being so true to life, I enjoyed it. Because like I hadn't even thought of the bus brothers before this episode. Like they weren't even not in the periphery or anything.

So to just plunk them in and make the main part of like Jeannie getting passed over and screwed over like you said, Bill. I was just like, yep, they've been doing this for 40 years now. Do you like it, Chris? Yeah, I thought there was like really good moment when the two brothers are like, do you want to sit in between us? Because I think the implication being that they know that they're going to get up to no good

if dad's not in between them. And then, you know, like the Philly fans and they get into it with the Philly fans around them and I think Jimmy, Jerry's sort of seeing these guys aren't ready yet. They're just a little too immature, but obviously we know that they will go on to take a rule in the team. The Jeannie thing

is interesting because they fast forwarded her involvement with the team, like in this season, and I think it's a really cool character, but Jeannie wasn't really involved with the Lakers around this time. She was done. And so I wonder whether or not they downshift her participation in next season and bring in one of the sons a little bit more. I'm really interested to see what they do

and interested to see how they internalize the criticism or analysis of, like, hey, why did you deviate from like pretty provable historical facts, like when teams are playing and whether they won? whether somebody was hurt. Yeah, why do it sometimes, but then not other times. So I wonder whether or not they'll choose to do, whether next season will have all the McKay flourishes, all the stuff that we've kind of come to love about the show,

or whether it will be something different. Like, why not have Spencer Hayward involved in the Wonderland murders? Sure. Before you get wacky, it's like, Spencer Haywood should have met John Holmes in the last episode. My friend John is a porn star. He knows some dudes who have a lot of cocaine, and they need to move it.

Spencer's going over the Wunderland house. You're saying this so casually, like, this is it like the pitch, this is the show you wouldn't pitch to Daisy Floyd. Yeah, let's do it. Season two. I just felt like the show was halfway there. Like, sometimes it was off the rails. And then other times it was trying to be respectful of history.

And I don't know. Like, like, here's a good example of just factually, completely inaccurate. The game six of 1980 NBA Finals was a blowout. Right. It was taped delayed. It was only shown in four cities. Can you name the four cities, Chris? Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas?

No, what do you have, Wes? Yeah, I would definitely say Chicago. I mean, I would definitely say New York and L.A. Wrong and wrong. Wow. Where were they showing? French Lick? L.A., Philly, Portland, Seattle.

Interesting. Those are the four. So back then they would give each. affiliate the right to they could either bump the Friday night CBS lineup, which was like Dukes of Hazard, Dallas, you know, is a pretty lucrative lineup for them. You can you can bump those shows and run the game live and run those shows, you know, late nights. Most cities were like, no, no, no, we'll go with the tape delay.

So they're showing Magic's whole family watching the game live in Michigan. The game was not on in Michigan. Yeah. It wasn't on really anywhere. And what's crazy is I was doing some research on this. Atlanta just never showed the game. Atlanta was like, we're good. They're like, what about 11.30?

And Atlanta said, no, no, we're still good. Tell us what happens. Hawks fans are carrying on that tradition today. Right, seriously. It's probably a bad side. We'll just play some good times reruns. But what I do think about that too, Bill, is that, you know, even if the show isn't always historically accurate,

and I keep saying this, like they keep nailing. the feel like right on the head. Like the NBA was so fucking second rate. It was just a shabby-ass operation. And I think the show is showing you what it took to professionalize this whole thing. Like Larry O'Brien is such a lonesome character. It's perfect.

I'm like, this guy is so easy to hate. And it's going to set it up when David Stern ultimately takes over and be like, all right, cool. Like, we got somebody who understands what the fuck is going on. Like, the idea that this guy's helicoptering in because it was, you know,

having lunch somewhere at the four seasons and some shit is just perfect. I wish they had gone even further with Larry O'Brien because he's like the typical example of somebody who had kind of peaked 10 years earlier and then takes that one last job at a corporation or a network or whatever. It's kind of the washed up executive,

but he's still in name. That's the stage he was at when he took over the NBA, had no vision for it at all in any respect. The sort of last gasp, I'm on vacation, but working job for him, was running the NBA. Yeah.

And there's, when I was doing the research for my book, and I was fascinated by how All-Star Weekend started. And it was basically this guy, Rick Welts, who went on to, you just went on to have a great career with the sons and the Warriors,

all this stuff. And him and a couple other people on his staff laid out this whole plan. And Larry O'Brien, saw it and instead of being like, wow, this is cool. This is really creative. This really would showcase our young stars was basically like, how much is this going to cost?

And then I'll do it, but it has to be this number and then left the room. Like he just didn't, he was just terrible. So I felt like they could have leaned into him too. I like what they're doing with Stern though. Yeah. I like that even though, you know, the final 75P thing is insane. I like the fact that they're setting up that this guy is a mover and a shaker. And he sees the future.

Yeah, and Magic and Larry are going to be the future, and Star Power is going to be the future. And like that sometimes the narrative matters more than what you see, you know, that's like, yeah, you know, Kareem may have won it. I know that that didn't happen. But like the idea is that Kareem may have won it, but we can't have the finals MVP not be here. It needs to be, the hero needs to take the stage.

You know, it can't be this phone call. So I thought even though it was bullshit, I thought I got what it was trying to communicate. Yeah. And so to that point. I really do. I am somebody who thinks that Katie going to the Warriors kind of made the league suffer a bit.

In the sense that there was no stories, right? It was like, we know the ending at the beginning. This team is going to destroy everybody. So it was hard to get invested in any real stories. And now with the playoffs this year, it's like, is Chris Paul going to melt down again? Like, what's happening with Janus? What's happening with Luca?

Did Jordan Poole knock John's knee on his leg? Yeah. He dropped him. There's so many cool stories developing again now that we're out of that. Like a playoffs with no LeBron. We got all these other stories when they've leaned on LeBron for stories so much. I just love what the show is doing to tell you this specific story. And even how it relates to now.

Like, again, like we take it for granted that not only is, you know, the most important games going to be showcased on ABC. I got that shit on demand on leave. past. An hour later, I can just watch this shit. It's, you know,

this story informs how we consume the NBA today, too. It's wild to see these, there's two series at least, the Gris series and the Sun series, like kind of have this 80s feel. You know what I mean? Like,

just all the stuff with like Taylor Jenkins trying to sort of like work the refs a little bit or the stuff with Chris Paul's family yesterday and like foul hunting and like refs being on the spot. got broken because he got freaking clobbered in the fucking head, yeah.

So it's just been like, it's kind of like almost like, boy, we're back. It's great. It's great. What more did you want from Jerry West during that last game? Did you want him to push over a hot dog truck?

Yeah, it was a shame that he didn't have a couple of Manhattan's. The way that he chugged that Pepto-Bismol was so hilarious, dude. The Larry Bird piece of this. So Bird in real life wins the 1981 title. Magic gets hurt in 1981. They end up losing a best two out of three series to Houston.

Magic shoots the game losing airball. And this is, it basically, they basically switch places. Magic's the golden boy coming out of 1980. Bird becomes the golden boy coming out of 1981. When I think of where the show goes forward, you could tell me it's just 1981, but I actually think they'll combine the next two years. years because if you do 81 and 82, you get Magic getting hurt. You get Magic's contract for the

25 million for 25 years. You get Paul Westhead going off the rails in the training camp in 1982 and putting in this really complicated Kareem heavy offense. They have a rebellion against it, basically. You have Riley basically getting the job the questions of whether he snaked Westhead for it or not. you have the crowd turning on magic because they think he got West had fired, which 40 years ago was, you know, players weren't supposed to do stuff like that. Player empowerment wasn't supposed to happen.

These days, Mark Gassal can get a guy fired. Nobody who writes about it. Seriously. So you have that and you have magic going from being like this young hero in the face of the league to being like kind of a disgrace in a lot of ways. Then they rally back and they win the 1980 title. my guess, Chris, is they're going to probably combine those two years?

This is the thing that I'm most excited about is honestly, the way that this show set itself up formally in the opening episodes kind of made you feel like anything could happen. And then they played it pretty straight. They did one season for one season of the NBA. They finished with the championship. They finished with a sports movie.

But they also laid the whole groundwork for how Bus got the Lakers. Absolutely. Lots of stuff they don't have to do in season two. Exactly. So because of that, do hope you're right. I honestly hope they like, it would be cool

if they pulled like a, we own this city and did like a couple of seasons at once and cut between them. You know what I mean? Like you could do like 86, 82, and 81 or something. Like you could go around all over the place and kind of, I feel like, here's Pat Riley now, but here's where he was then

and here's how he got there. And I have a feeling next season will be more about Pat Riley. I think Pat Riley, I think Brody, like, signs on for this deal. I think he's like, cool, I get to do this, but like, I'm going to basically be the star of a future season of this show. Where's Donald Sterling and all this, Wes? We need so much more Sterling.

So many more white parties at Labor Day. And you know what's so cool, too, like, before I watched the episode, they showed me the freaking preview for the Game of Thrones prequel, which I'm really excited about. And what I realize is that the bird and magic Lakers Celtic stuff is like this shows dragons, right? It's like it's on the periphery. Like we know it's coming and it's the main event. And I think that's the coolest part is I can't wait to get rolling with this Celtics, Lakers stuff. Plus you have on the show Larry Bird, you know, becoming the grand marshal of the KKK, whatever else they have planned for.

Jesus. Yo. Oh, my God. That, like, the dude in his apartment saying that really racist thing about magic, I was just like, yo, why does the depiction of these folks have to be so vile? Like, it's just crazy. Like, everybody in Indiana is just foaming at the mouth. Yeah, in real life, dude, wait until they get this.

Bird was living in Brookline. He lived in the house next to his agent's house, Bob Wolf. And he hung out with his agent and his agent's son, who was like a 13-year-old. And he just was like really shy and didn't want to, you know, maybe had like his brother come every once in a while. But they made it seem like he. Yeah, but you know, but like the, when you print the legend, you get the Jimmy Chitwood part at the end where he's like practicing the skyhook out in the field. Like that's like still pretty sick. I know.

And then, you know, the cookie stuff, they never, I think if you're going to look at the show, as a whole. They never heard the cookie stuff I thought was probably the most boring part. Yeah. Although that actress, I think is excellent. Yeah, it just doesn't have a lot to do.

It just feels like this love story angle is just shooting because for whatever reason, show creators always think we need a fucking love story. Right. Even in a show about, you know, philandering dudes in the 80s, like, I guess. I mean, the love story should have just been magic. ripping through the city of Los Angeles

with every celebrity possible. I would have enjoyed that love story too. I'm guessing with the bus family stuff, maybe they lean into the brothers. That'll get interesting for sure. Other than that, I don't know. I guess Riley will become a bigger piece. I think Gillian Jacobs and Riley's relationship

with his wife will become a thing with Chris Riley. I think, I'm trying to find it because there was some, One of those guys who plays one of the bus brothers, I was like... Is a real guy? I was like, oh, this dude, I've seen this dude before. I wonder if he's going to be, if he's going to be like a bigger part of next season. You think there's a genie bus nose job coming? Because Hadley Robinson, the one who plays genie bus in real life, does not look like that.

She's wearing prosthetics. So I'm wondering if... Wait, what? Yeah. She's wearing a bigger note. Yeah, she's wearing a prosthetic note. Wow. Yeah, go look at Hadley Robinson in real life.

She does not look like Jeannie Bus on this show. And honestly, Jeannie Bus does look like Jeannie Bus on the show. So I'm guessing, because remember at some point she does Playboy, I think in the mid-80s or later 80s. So there's going to be some sort of Jeannie Bus emergence. Yeah. Big deal. Was that a big deal at the time?

Jeannie Bus? That was a thing. You as a hoops head, you were like, This is kind of crazy. It was like the Lakers owner's daughter? Is this Playboy? What's going on? Playboy also mattered a lot more back then.

Right. It's the great articles. All right. So Chris, your final grade of the season was? A B. A B, but like a positive B. A B, but like a very pleasant B. Like never a, never a chore, never I'm out B.

Just like, let's save the A's for the successions and the, you know, the mayors of East towns or whatever. but a B. What do you have, B? I was going to say 8.0 out of 10, so I guess that's a B. Now, that's like a B plus. 80? Is it 80? A B plus? Oh, 80 at it.

Oh, that's a B minus. So there you go, B minus. Yeah, I'll give it a B minus. But, you know, the student shows a lot of promise and potential. It just needs to apply itself a little bit more. So I'm excited about season two. Bill, how many points do you knock off for the depiction of Larry Bird.

You know what? I'm trying not to let my love for the legend as well as the Celtics color my opinion of the show as a whole. I don't think it was any worse than what they did

to Jerry West. Certainly not. Or chick-hurn. I don't, I guess the part I don't understand is why, oh, Jeannie Bus was

an employee boy until May 1995. So my dates were a little off. Okay. I guess what I don't understand, I think Bird could have been a more interesting character

than just kind of choosing to do him as like a parody of himself. Yeah. It's a Lakeer story. No, I get it. But if we're going to evolve with the Bird Magic robbery, there is way more to Bird. Like he was this really quiet shy, like painfully, almost like social disorder and public guy.

But then with the team was like this wisecracking dude. And on the court, he talked a lot of trash. And I just think there was more there. Maybe they'll start leaning into it a little bit more. They made him seem like such a stereotype. Also, like, Byrd's reputation is that of, like, he's like a pool hall hustler. Yeah.

He's not this, like, brute. Like, he's a slick dude. Like, super slick, like, people that get to know him. And, like, you know, the shit that he's doing that three-point contest, wearing his practice jersey. I mean, wearing his warm up and all of that. Like, he's a really slick guy. He's not this fucking...

Just like savage hillbilly out of control. He's like one of the rednecks in 48 hours or something. Exactly. You know the thing that offended me the most is a Celtic fan, honestly was R-back bragging about winning these awards that weren't titles. All R-Back cared about was titles. He was like, oh, I'm here to accept the coach of the year. He would not be like, I got executive of the year.

I got three awards. Like there's just no way that happened. Anytime they didn't win the title, that's all he cared about. So that didn't really. That didn't really rank sure either. But all right, that's it. My grade for this show was B minus, but I thought it was B plus from an entertaining standpoint.

I enjoyed being annoyed by it. I enjoyed some of the stuff that got right. I thought the sports scenes and the CGI stuff was really cool, especially in that game six. Like when Chick-Hur and asked Westhead for the fist pump and they show it, it really looks like a real game. You see the crowd be, I don't know how they did some of that stuff. When Kareem injures his foot, you're like,

That was really good time. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it's a show that 10 years ago, I think they would have had a lot of trouble making it even remotely as realistic. I remember, was, do you remember a show called The Hoop Life on Showtime in the 2000s?

I do not. I did not watch them. No, I don't. It was Michael T. Williamson. I think it was called The Hoop Life. It was Michael T.

Williamson, aka Bubba Gump. He was the star of a basketball team. And it ran. But one of the reasons the show, show didn't work was anytime they had basketball footage, it just, you know, it'd be like clearly, it was called the Hoop Life, 1999 and 2000. Anytime they had the basketball footage, it was just so unrealistic, and you just kind of couldn't get past it. Dan Loria was the coach, the dad for the Wonder Years.

I'm trying to think was anybody else in it? That's it, just bubble gum. But yeah, so I think we've come a long way. It's definitely it's probably some of the best basketball stuff I've seen it on screen other than... Certain times when that dude is dribbling you can tell it's not the guy that's playing magic. It's like a dude.

But there's even, I think, a couple of cutaways to like using actual game footage in this episode, which I thought was really effective. They do a really nice job of that. But yeah, like I thought it was just really cool. Like the way that... I think that the way that they set up Showtime is amazing. So more Riley.

more bus brothers, some magic cream dissension. And Larry Bird's redemption arc. Larry Bird renounces the white supremacist groups that he was apparently involved with on the show. And then Spencer Haywood helps

play in the Wonderland murders. And we're good to go for season two. I think that those would be my big suggestions. Was, CR, great to see you as always. This podcast was produced by Jesse Lopez. We are done on winning time. We might be doing the last.

four episodes we on the city. So stay tuned for that. See you next time on the prestige.