The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Winning Time’ Season 1, Episode 7 Recap

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Chris Ryan, Bill Simmons, and Wosny Lambre recap Episode 7 of HBO’s ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,’ including the show’s relationship with reality, where it strays from Jeff Pearlman’s book, and the performances of Jason Segel, Wood Harris, and more. Hosts: Chris Ryan, Bill Simmons, Wosny Lambre Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Dave Chang here, host of the Dave Chang Show. You might hear me on with Chris Yang, Noel Cornelio, and a host of other guests. We've been on air for quite some time now, and it's changed over the years. But one of the things we always try to talk about is what's delicious, how to be a better eater. And you might hear me rambling incoherently, contradicting myself every five minutes. We talk about some sports and culture and all kinds of other things too. I think we're the most expert opinions you'll ever hear about anything. Check us out if you haven't before on the Ringer podcast network.

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Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Hello and welcome to the Ringer Prestige TV podcast. I'm Chris Ryan. I'm joined by Bill Simmons and Wozni Lambre.

And we are here to talk about winning time, a show that plays with fast. Act's and Fiction. And, you know, people have had some issues with various storylines and characters on this show, guys. You know, earlier in the season, a lot of people shedding a tear for the depiction of Jerry West. Hmm. And I think that you... The same thing to have a...

Sweaty, Jerry West. Pretty healthy relationship to it. We're just like, you know what? We got to let the creators create. We got to let people tell the story they're needing to take. But I can't tell you how excited I am to hear one man's opinion about the deposition. of the greater Boston fan base that I have to hear Bill Simmons, who's freshly returned from a trip to his homeland.

Yeah. Where I watch people scream, fuck you at Carri Urban for three hours. I was like, art imitates life. Yeah. Before we get to the Boston fans, just the factual stuff in the show.

Yeah, this was a tough one. I don't understand it. I don't understand what the end game is. Because this isn't like, I don't know, we crack. where they could just make up whatever and I would have no idea.

In sports, we have box scores, we have stats, we have magazine articles. We have all of these different ways to just look up basic stuff. Like, did Spencer Haywood play or not? Did the Lakers go on a road trip swoon or not? And when they just start making up stuff, you know, I sent you guys that they made it seem like they lost the Detroit game and they were on this losing street getting into the bus. And there's just, it's just not what happened. And those road trip games were January.

And then the big thing for me is just that Boston game that they show. And it ends with like an alley-oop at the end. And then in real life, if you go watch it, Norm Nixon's the one who has a ball. And he gets fouled with three seconds left. And to me, it's like that's a big deal that Norm Nixon had the ball because they're making it seem like this is Magic Johnson's team. But in the end of a game in Boston, 98, Norm Nixon's the one with the ball. And he was the one deciding what would happen.

That's way more interesting to me than the Hollywood version of what they, you know, they, what story that, to me, I thought this was the most broken episode they had was. You know, you guys got me down the road of thinking about the facts and the fictions. Like, I read Jack McKinney's obituary in the New York Times today and the team went 60 and 62. I was like, wait a second, this season didn't have any, that was definitely an obstacle, right? your head coach getting freaking severely injured in a bicycle accident. Like, that's a big blow to your season.

But outside of that, a 60 and 62 season in every season. 60 and 20, sorry, in 22 season is a fantastic, extremely successful season under any circumstance or context. So it's like, it's kind of funny that they're shoehorning in some of this, you know, fake drama. But I had some, I want to hear Bill get more into some of the season stuff, but I have some of my own, like, I really hope this is true or else it's like pretty fucked up. The problem for me is like if they're going to make stuff up at this part of the season, what happens when we get to the playoffs?

What happens when we get to Magic's final game when Kareem gets hurt? Is Magic going to have 70 points in the game? Like how far do we go? It's weird what they have adjusted. So like you guys, you mentioned the score of the Boston. the Boston game. They just changed the score by one point, weirdly,

but it's just like a detail like that that I don't understand. I'm going to make the case for why this is happening. Okay. One, they're a victim of their own the show itself is a victim of the names

that are attached to it. So you get Jason Segal playing Paul Westhead. It's hard to maybe sell Jason Segal on the idea of playing this guy who was actually like not as big of a dork and a headcase,

I don't think, I mean, if you read about Paul Wessett, now I don't want to get too into like, oh, if you just go read this or read that, because I don't want to spoil things for people. But Paul Wesson was a pretty interesting character, a pretty different kind of cat, but not necessarily the way Jason Segal is portraying him.

But you set him up the way to do. You mean, he wasn't frantic and just discombobbly at all the time. There's interviews with him on YouTube where he seems like a pretty cool cat. He seems like Ryan is for Riley. He seems like really cool. Yeah. If you see pictures of him with Riley,

he's the cool one. You know, and Riley's got a lot. on and is wearing a track suit and seems a little bit awkward. But like, I think that there's almost this need to build up these characters to fit the Sally Fields and to fit the Jason Seagulls and to fit the kind of performances that maybe people want to give. And on the other hand, I think that also there's a certain distrust with whether or not

like a mass audience would be able to go along with a show that was like really about the finer details of this situation. Because that stuff's in the Showtime book. This is an adaptation of Jeff Pearlman's book. but it is definitely a dramatization and a real left turn from historical fact when you just,

you can just watch a lot of this stuff on YouTube. And it's pretty fascinating to watch the YouTube. I was watching the bird and magic. I didn't see a pregame press conference like the one that's depicted in this episode, but they do a pregame interview with both guys.

There's a guy named Hot Rod. Yeah, Hot Rod, he was great. Yeah. And he's, you know, Brett Musburger throws it over to this guy.

And they have an interview with magic. And he's like, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm nursing an injury. but I'm going to go out there and do my best. And I was like, oh, they didn't really get into magic injury in this game.

And then when they go to Bird, Bird is like pretty banal, but he's like totally personable and nice. It's not like he's like, fuck you. I don't want to talk to the press, spitting tobacco juice all over yourself. It does, for the purposes of TV, though, it makes it seem a little bit more dramatic. I get it. I get why they did it. The Bird portrayal is just absurd as somebody who was there the whole time.

And you could say it in the interviews from him that year. He was very soft-spoken, a little bit withdrawn, but had like a, you know, a nice demeanor to him. He wasn't like this like, you know, he trash talks on the court. Right. But that was later. That was, that really started in like the 84-85 range. I get it. They're trying to make these guys different characters.

The factual stuff to me is more disturbing. Like I saw Jeff Perlman and Bob Ryan were going at it. Jeff Perlman's guy wrote the book. Bob Ryan was apoplectic about this show. And I'm going to have them on my podcast at some point. He just thought it was completely absurd. But the same way, if you're watching an adaptation of any real-life thing and you were there, you would think it was absurd.

But Jeff Perman was saying, like, this is no different than remember the Titans in 42 and some of these other things. I get it. I get that logic. To me, it's just an unforced error. Like, there was a way to make all this stuff factually more authentic without just going completely sideways. Yeah, you had all this stuff. There's enough actual.

factual drama that you didn't really need to do this. But to Chris's point about the actors needing something more to do, I kind of get it. But like for me, where it gets problematic is like, did Larry Bird actually chew tobacco? Do we know that? Like, was Larry Bird a dipper?

I actually thought he was a smoker. And he's... I think he would have a couple cancer sticks every so often. That was always the word on the street. I don't know about the tobacco. Yeah, I think he was a beer drinker. He's spitting chewing tobacco into a can of Budwiser.

And like, because of the way I think and, you know, my understanding that basically, like, poor white Americans are the last, like, disenfranchised people we're allowed to make fun of and do sick, bad stereotypes about. Yeah. I was like, yo, this is legitimately fucked up if it's not true. Like, Larry Bird is this dirty, nasty hick for. from Indiana who's chewing tobacco before the games and he's being really mean to his black counterparts. Right. It's like so weird and unnecessary.

Like, why do we have to do this? Yeah, and there was also, they played in L.A. before that Boston game. And the Lakers kicked their ass. The bird was really bad. And that was the game where it was like, magic and bird, head to head again. Yeah, yeah. They made, for some reason, they skipped on that. The chronology was all off on where the Christmas break,

when those when that road trip happened. Look, if they're going to bend the facts, that's fine. But, you know, for people like us that actually care about this stuff, I don't understand it. So are they going for like my wife who doesn't care about any of the accuracy and doesn't know any better? Like, who is the audience for the show? They're going to bend the facts.

The question is whether or not like sports storytelling or sports movies, sports TV shows can't help themselves. Like, ultimately, you have to make the Lakers into the bad news bears or you have to make them into the East Dillan team. or you have to make them into Hoosiers going into the big bag garden and playing against the ghostly leprechaun with the rats coming around the floor. Ultimately, I think that you and me and Waz and a bunch of people we know would be really in to a highly detailed look

at how the Lakers introduced the modern NBA. But that's probably like a very niche product if they make it that way. I think to make it something that, yeah, your wife likes or that like general public likes, like, I do the pie with Andy. Andy's not like a Lakers scholar. And Andy's like, that's a pretty good show. That's a very good TV show. And I was like, did you know none of that shit happened?

Yeah. It just doesn't matter. By the way, Bill, I wanted to let you know that I'm going to adopt in the Pearlman Bob Ryan back and forth. Jeff Pearlman pulled a move that I'm going to start adopting with you, which is, to be clear, at Globe Bob Ryan, huge admirer, but is shit. I'm going to start doing that to you. Like, at Bill Simmons, huge admirer.

But if you ever talk about Joel and Beat again. It reminds me when Jeff Ross would roast people on those celebrity roasts, and he would just destroy the person for seven minutes. And it's like, you're a huge fan. I'm a huge fan. You've been a huge inspiration. Thank you for everything. The person's meanwhile has seven bullet ones of them.

Yeah, look, I don't know if you can compare this to a Remember the Titans' 42 type situation. And by the way, remember the Titans, what they did with that. movie versus what happened in real life is absurd. And they do the based on the true story. We talked about this when we did the rewatchables about it. The based on the true story gives you all of these liberties to do whatever. So, you know, I don't think Jeff Parlement can defend the reporting of his book, which his book was excellent.

And he interviewed over 300 people, all that stuff. The book is different than the TV show. I think they have to make it more clear. We took this book and we took some elements we liked and we made this crazy TV. show about it. I think it's a little like when we did the JFK podcast, Chris, and we were like, wow, this is like, they really like, really were on a bender when they were coming up with some of the stuff in this one. And the reason I think this is important is with three episodes left. And I have no idea what they're going to do. Like they made it seem like Spencer Haywood was benched. He played,

you can look it up. He was like 20 to 30 minutes a game. And, you know, was there, was there lead forward off the bench. Like Wood Harris is 52 years old. He wasn't 52 years old. But there was, there was some interesting stuff that was happening that season that they don't go into in the show at all. Maybe it's too hardcore basketball nerdy. But like, there was a real debate.

And you can read about it and breaks of the game about what is magic? Right. What is this guy? He's this six foot nine point guard. He's, his shots weird. There was a real debate in the league. Like, what is the upside of this guy? He's a really fun player.

can this guy be an essential blue chip guy in a winning team? And then it turned out he shut everyone up in the finals. Whereas like Bird, I think was the more traditional. I get what this guy is. He's a forward. He rebounds. He can shoot.

I know what he is. They don't go into that at all. I guess the Kareem piece, remember the last time we talked about what is this Kareem character? Can we have a moment where it seems like he's smart? They finally did that. I thought that was the best scene in the,

and when he's talking to Magic Dead. That thing was awesome. Yes. It's awesome. Yes. I wrote this down. I like the sort of ying and the yang of Kareem and Magic, right? And like both of them understanding what the other actually brings to the table and why it's important.

And, yeah, that scene with Kareem and Magic's dad was just really, really powerful stuff. And it's just crazy that a show this wacky where Pat Riley is literally hosing down Paul Westhead. Right. In a freaking shower because he's so manic, but yet that same episode could have this powerful sort of conversation about how you handle, you know, the spotlight as a black person. Like, how angry do you choose to be? I remember, I remember one of the first conversations I had with Chris Ryan. I was telling him that I don't fuck with Will Smith because he's a happy Negro. And literally, Kareem is saying that about magic to his dad.

Yeah. He's like, yo, what's up with him? Why is he always so happy? Like, does he know what it means to be black in America? Like, I just thought that was such a nuanced conversation that they had, man. Like, it was very multi-layered. And that was incredible. And, like, the relationship that Magic and Kareem are building toward is nice.

Like, that's beautiful what they're doing with that. Again, when you mention your wife, Bill, I think about, like, every time I see an unnecessary love story shoehorned into anything, I blame women for it. I'm like, they had to do this for women. Like, they had to. Like, they had to have women in mind. But I think it's more that they have to do it for like casuals.

They have to do it for people who are like, when I turn on a movie or a TV show, I want one of three things. I want like, I want action. I want romance or I want, you know, whatever. The third thing is.

It's like there needs to be one of these core human motivating elements that bring people back to a show. Because a show that's like about the sort of, slow transition from Jack McKinney to Paul Westhead to Pat Riley and the slight variations that happened with Showtime and the introduction of a more stout defensive, you know, backbone that Riley brought to that team is probably not going to be a huge hit. You know, like, you guys are talking about the scene, the Christmas dinner scene at Magic Johnson's family's house in Detroit. I just want to shout out that Devon Nixon does another great job in that scene where he's

holding court on the sofa and starts like gooseing these guys up about what Boston's like to playing with the leprechaun and everything. I thought that was quite good. Yeah, that was good. Yeah. You know, when we talk about, like, jazzing up certain things versus not playing up other things, to me, like, cocaine should have been a way bigger character in this show. Like, if we were going to go off the rails with some of the stuff we want to do with the show,

I would have... I would have... I would have gone less on the Larry Bird as this tobacco spitting, like, whatever... Whatever they were trying to do with that Larry Bird thing. And cocaine should have been in every... Like Hayward, in real life, Hayward is going down to... Yeah.

During this season. I wonder what he's positioned as like this angry guy who's not playing, but I think it was going way worse for him than that. They're sort of... They're subtly doing the Hayward drug thing. Like, the way he... Why subtle, though?

Nothing else in the show is subtle. That's the weird part about it. Like, he gives this glance to the crack vial at that party where it's offered to them. And like, you know, if you know the subtexts, you're supposed to know, oh, baby, that's going to get bad. But it's very subtly done. He's kind of just, the guy offers them.

He's like, oh, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, rocked cocaine, and smoking and it's so intense and it's great. And he looks at it and he, like, I don't know, he looked at it like how I be looking at Thanksgiving leftovers, you know what I mean? And it's just subtly done. And it's like, okay, that's foreshadowing something crazy. that's going to happen. But yeah,

they need to play up the drug angles more, especially because this is a 1970s, go-go-80s-centric show. You know what's so funny, though, is that we're begrudging them

the Spencer Haywood plotline. I'm getting annoyed about, like, the depiction of Paul Westhead. Very little is really known about Jesse Bus. They've talked about this where, like,

the Sally Field was like, there's just not a lot about Jesse Bus out there. And so, like, that winds up being one of the best written sort of parts of the show is this guy's relationship to his mom who's like a really good accountant

teaches him how to play Monopoly but then she starts getting sick and having strokes because of cancer and you're like, I don't know, I mean, that one little element of the fact that you don't have history correcting that record, I find myself very drawn

to that storyline for some reason. You know what I mean? And it's, I wonder how many people out there are actually affected by stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know the answer. Who knows? There's so many, the show's juggling so many characters

that it's actually pretty impressive. Yeah. Like what do we have at this point? We have seven episodes in. Sally Field, like all these great actors they have all over the place. And that's why I think,

I think it's a good sign for the show that we're upset about certain things. Because that means we like the show. You know, it feels like, we're definitely backseat driving a sports car. It's like, this car is moving really fast

and it's cool. But like, what if it did, this too, you know? Yeah, I think that's, you know, ultimately it's because we really like the show. And I personally don't think Jeff Borman should be, you know, complaining when people criticize stuff. I mean, he's a producer.

Yeah, no, no, but it's like, you know what? You put stuff in the world. People are going to critique it one way or the other. And that's part of the process. And the factual stuff, I think is a course. You know what I mean? We get it every day. Yeah, seriously.

We get it when you write, when you do whatever. But I think for me. I thought this was the most frustrating episode, probably since the second episode. Because I thought they were on a really nice run. So is that because of the Boston element or just in general? The Boston element's fine. Like they're trying to play up characters. Like that,

that to me was no different than anything else. The bird thing was bad. I just, it didn't ring true at all. But they've done that with five or six people now. One thing about the bird thing, though, Bill. I was,

I was, I've been annoyed by bird's haircut since the first time they debuted the character. But then, But then I watched the interview from that game that Chris sent over. And I was like, they nailed the hair. They did. They actually nailed the look. Exactly to a fucking day.

Here's the other thing that they did. They did something really cool that I think is a little bit underrated with these game scenes. That could be just a complete abomination even 10 years ago. But the CGI, it looks garden-y enough. So that stuff, I thought that was pretty cool how they filmed it. They did a good job. Setting it up on the outside when they arrive at a bus, Harmon, and West arrive at the garden. And West is like, I'm staying in the car.

And then they kind of do a couple of shots at the outside of the old garden. I was going to ask you, Bill, the limo driver uses the word Wicked. Were they saying that in 1980? Oh, yeah. They were. Oh, yeah. In 1980. What about 2022?

Yeah, Wicked was the real word. We've obviously buried the lead on this show. And just the depiction of how Boston people feel about their sports team. I just want to share with you guys something. Around 2014 or 15, I was in Boston during a Patriots playoff game. I think it was a divisional game. And I had never been in Boston for like a big sports thing. And I was blown away, Chris.

Every single person had a Patriots thing on that day. Everyone. There was not one person out of step with this shit. And we watched it at a sports bar. And of course, people were going nuts. And it was the whole thing. I was like, yo, this shit is like, it reminded me at like Penn State, like a college town. Like these motherfuckers are extremely impassioned.

Like, look, like Yankee fans who I hate a lot, they love the Yankees, right? Like, people love the Knicks. But it's not, it's just not the same. There's more to do in New York. Yeah. You go see Power of the dog. You do whatever you got to do. You're not staying, like, not every single person's life revolves around, like, the two sports teams.

You know, it's like, it's no defense. By the way, it's four sports teams. Yeah. You know, I went to the game on Sunday night and then Monday, Marathon Monday, and the Red Sox game starts at 11. We went to that too. And it's just, it's like that in Philly, too. It's like a ritual. It's insane when the Eagles and Phillies are hot in Philly.

It's just like all you see is. Yeah. I used to write about this. in the 2000s, back when I used to write stuff about when like the Yankees would come to town for a big September series or something. And it honestly felt like the whole city was going to war that weekend. You would be on the streets at like 3.30 on a Friday and everyone's wearing Red So it's like we're all soldiers. But that's what it's like. So that I didn't, I didn't care that they, you know, blew that stuff up because they should have. They've done that all over the place

with this show. I think when I just worry about what from what we've seen. for the first seven episodes, Chris. What would be the worst case scenarios for what they might do for the last three episodes? Well, we were talking about this on our last recap pod about how far, whether they're going to end the season with the championship, whether like the next season might jump ahead a few years or not. I think it ends. They move so fast.

We're now in January. So I think we're on pace for the finals. Yeah. And they obviously set it up with the final bus McKinney conversation. where, you know, he throws him the monopoly piece, and he's like, I still, you know, like we still got some game left to play or whatever. You know, he's like, the implication being that they're going towards the playoffs

and this deadline for McKinney getting better is still there. Incidentally, Elgin Baylor was never being considered to replace Westhead. It was, he was more being considered as Westhead's assistant instead of Pat Riley. But I don't think they'll take any liberties with like, I mean, they don't have to. That's the thing that's so great about the Celtics Lakers rivalry is that they actually did play each other a lot. They actually did have this incredible rivalry and these characters really were in-cris. Can I interrupt you on that? Of course. In 1980, it was not a rivalry. It was a feud because we beat

them every single time. No, we did. We beat them every time. The Celtics beat the Lakers every time. In the 1980, our rival was the Sixers. Yeah. The Lakers thing, it didn't really go to the next level until 84, 85, 87, because they beat us in 85 and then it became a rivalry. So, you know how it goes. Okay. I'm praising you to Sixers for a rival. This is so sick. We beat the Lakers for the first 40 years of the league.

There was a really good. It's not a rivalry. A good Moses Malone cameo in this episode of him knocking Westhead into the... Yeah, I'm pretty sure that clip would exist from like George Michael's sports machine or something like that. That was, and then Bird, that was another thing where it's just like, don't have bird throw the ball at Spencer Haywood. Like, that definitely didn't happen.

Well, also the bird trash talk was written by someone who does not talk a ton of trash on the basketball court because it was like Larry Bird's trash talk was a paragraph long. Right. It was like that's like a, that would definitely be like a, you'd get trapped and lose the ball if you're like, hey, guys, just so you know I'm going to go to 12 feet back step off my left. Yeah. Yeah, he would do that like coming out of timeouts. There's a famous story about Xavier McDaniel where he's like, hey, I'm going to get the ball right there and I'm going to shoot over you and we're going to. to win the game and then he did it. And they cut to Xavier McDaniel

told him the story and he's like, I was just like, damn. But like that's, he did more timeout stuff. I think the under the breast stuff when they're actually playing was more like, fuck you motherfucker.

Yeah, right. Just like subtle stuff like that. There's, you know, I mentioned the Moses Malone thing. There's a brief Rick Barry. Oh, that was fun.

They didn't a job with that. They just have so many little things that I think are so cool. Like the Pat Riley, flashing to his dad as he's like doing his hair and his mustache. Yeah. Like there's so many little details in this show that I love so much that I think that I'm almost willing to kind of forgive its trespasses.

Even though it's trespasses are getting a little suspect. Well, the Riley thing's a good one because did a really nice job this episode of showing Riley's should actually be the one driving the car, right? There's a couple moments when he becomes like the dad versus what, you know, he's stepping in in a way that he's laying the breadcrumbs for where this is going to go. That I thought was really intelligent how they did it. And that makes me look forward to the moment that he does ultimately throw him under the bus and get him the hell up out of there, right?

And I know the show is going to play it for, I don't know exactly how it happened in real life because I still haven't read Jeff Perlman's book. But I'm sure the show was going to be like, yeah, Pat Riley snaked him. and, you know, him and Magic Johnson conspired together and et cetera, et cetera. He didn't. It was really all magic. I don't think Pat was just kind of the assistant. I don't think there was a lot of blood on his hands.

The magic, I mean, we're going down the road, but it was he comes in, magic got hurt the next season. And then the third season, Westhead decides he's on the cover of SI about like how smart of a coach he was at some point during that run. and he brings in all these plays to slow it down. He basically kills Showtime to run everything around Kareem. He takes out McKinney stuff to, yeah. Yeah, he takes, he's like, now we're going to do it my way. And the team was miserable and Magic was miserable. And Magic finally went to bus and asked to be traded.

And the next day they fired Westhead. And that was when everything turned on Matt. If that had happened now, that would have been the biggest sports story of the year. Because Magic got booed at home. It was kind of really the first modern. NBA superstar kind of calling his shots moment. Right. Yeah, power move.

Exactly. Bill, I wanted to ask you, one of the things that is obviously a TV convention that they have to do, this is kind of like in front of lights where everyone is always listening to sports radio about themselves. Yeah. But they didn't really have sports radio back then. In real life, the only person actually does that is KD.

Yeah. Right. As is on Twitter. In this show, like the, you know, they have multiple characters listening to the game on the radio. Was that, like, primarily how if you weren't able to go to the game and if the game wasn't being televised, the one time a week it was on? Like, did people listen to the games on radio live as much like that? They 100% did. And, was, you're going to love this.

I listened to the 1981 draft on the radio because we had three picks and I listened to the radio broadcast of it. And I think we took Tracy Jackson and Danny Aange with our second round picks. But yeah, the radio was way more involved than that tape delay stuff was. a real thing. You know, they, they, you would have these. But hold on. Were you, were people in,

uh, East Lansing, Michigan getting Lakers games on the radio, though? No, definitely not. I don't think so. Okay,

because that's part. That was, that was a scene in the freaking show. Magic Mom allegedly listening on the radio from Michigan to every Laker game. Well, the last, which was, what was a cute moment?

I don't, I can't imagine that actually. It was a cute moment, but I was like, mm, yeah, I don't think you could do that back then. The last thing,

the episode is like McKinney is basically like turning off the game film and bus walks in, even though bus was in Boston in the upper deck of the garden like a second ago. And then he walks into McKinney's, there's a little bit of compression there. Well, especially McKinney watching these games. The TVs back then were terrible anyway, but then you got these tiny hospital TVs and he's far away. Like everybody's just like a total blur at that point. I'll be interested to see how they handle McKinney because I remember like he was his

brains were definitely not the same after that accident because he ended up coaching the Pacers and it just wasn't the same guy. Yeah, he got like two other coaching jobs. Yeah, they're making it seem like he had his shit together. I don't know how authentic that was after the accident or not. I have no opinion on it. But I remember with the Indiana thing, there was basically the feeling that he wasn't really ever the same mentally.

I'll be really fascinated to see how they depict the relationship between Buss and McKinney because without giving anything away that could be in future episodes like in a dramatic way, their relationship in, like right now seems incredibly warm on the TV show and Bus is like, I just believe in this guy.

And there's definitely like an element to it that sours, I think, a little bit later. Well, in this show, like, I'm in the why not zone. Like, why not have Bus sleep with McKinney's wife? Sure. While Spencer Hayward does bumps on her back. Like, what are we doing?

We basically taken off the seatbelt with the show, right? Have us take her off to dinner and get it in there. I'm enjoying, see, like, I would be enjoying this even more if I had caught the Bob Ryan Jeff Perlman beef in real time. Now I have to go retroactive. Hopefully they didn't delete those tweets. No, those are all there. And the New York Post is memorialized it. I can say, yeah, the New York Post got into it.

Perfect. I had no, I look, I'm not so mad about like I said, the Jeannie Bus didn't work until the 80s. Like I think it's dope to have Jeannie Bus in the show. Like getting the timeline sort of confused is like, you know, it's kind of annoying. But again, I think there's enough bone with the characters, like with Magic and Jerry's relationship or, you know, like Magic and Jerry's relationship, how that affects how magic is with the rest of his teammates, right? Like, when you read about this shit in Seattle about Russell Wilson and basically everybody hating him because he felt like a narc in the company, man, like,

there's enough, like, legitimate drama there that we don't got to do, you know, Jerry West Bear Ass in a Motel 6, you feel me? I like Jerry West Bear ass. My biggest issue is probably with the depiction of, I guess they were pretty, they can be pretty bad, but you know, you think of like the 80s and the great sports sections in Boston. And then you see the, uh, the pregame press conference and all of the questions about to, hey, Larry, who's going to win the game? And it's like, yeah, could you guys not come up with a better question?

That's what Bob Ryan was pissed about about it. Yeah, there's no way there are that many people at a press conference for a random game in 1980. The other thing, and maybe they'll do this the last three episodes, but I think there was a life on the road piece that they're missing a little bit. But these guys back in 1980, they're going through normal airports. They're waiting at gates. They're hanging out with reporters in a real way.

I think there could have been a reporter character from the LA Times that befriended the players and got in there. I thought that we'd have 25 characters. Maybe it would have worked that in. But in general, just like how different their life was in 1980 versus how it is now with charters and cars picking them up and they're not around people at all. that's why I like that scene when they were going through the airport because I think that's what their real life was like

these guys also weren't that famous. They did that. I think it was the first or second episode when they go to the fish that saved Pittsburgh premiere. And the guys like really aren't big celebrities. Remember? Yeah. Somebody gets out of a limo.

They were jeal. Honestly, that's what the NBA was like. These guys weren't big celebrities. The games weren't on TV that much. And they, you know, the biggest stars in the league weren't that well liked. Like Kareem and Rick Barry. So Larry Bird did not have top list.

fans, like flashing magic at airports? Listen, that one might have, that, I could have actually seen that happen. Boston was pretty crazy. Yeah. Boston's pretty crazy back then. But yeah, so going forward, I, I just hope that we don't go off the rails too much. And I hope that people watching this realize that there's some liberties being taken. There's some liberties being taken.

But again, there's some legitimate fun stuff because. Magic and these guys are the first Uber-celeb, multi-million dollar athletes, right? Like, they are the first of their kind in this generation. And, like, the hyper-commercialization of the NBA, like, they're the ones who ushered in this freaking era. So, like, it'll be cool to chart that rise from, like, you know, like only crazy people like Bill and the people

who really are obsessed with the sport, reading every single magazine and consuming whatever they can, know who these guys are to them just being straight up, just household names. Yeah, they were way, the guys were way less interesting back then by design. And that was one of the reasons magic stuck out so much because he was such a charismatic guy. And people really weren't that charismatic. It was like O.J. Simpson was charismatic. But Sugar Ray Leonard was charismatic.

We got to do it like O.J. Man. Yeah. There's only a couple of them. I look, I look forward when I developed the Grantland TV series with Adam McKay and Jeff Perlman. Chris is going to be absolutely off the rails in the show. There's be hookers and cocaine. The first time we see Chris,

he's just going to be completely naked in a brothel and there's just going to be drugs everywhere. That's how we're going to go. I can't wait, Chris. What if we power ranked stuff? No one's ever thought of that before. Let's power rank all the bumps I'm going to do today. We can wrap it up there.

We'll be back probably next week for another episode of this. Yeah, let's go every week the rest of the way. This show's great. We got to bring House in at some point for one of these. For sure. Anyway, it was good to see you. Good to see you, Bill. Good to see you, Waz.

Thanks to Bobby Wagner for producing us today. Stay tuned to the Prestige TV podcast. We've got tons of stuff this week. Take care. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute.

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