The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Winning Time’ Season 2 Episode 1 Recap

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Chris Ryan and Joe House share their thoughts on the first episode of ‘Winning Time’ Season 2. They discuss the return of the HBO original series and debate whether it’s better or worse to watch the show as an NBA fan, its similarities to producer Adam McKay’s ‘Succession’, and what they look forward to the most for the remainder of the season. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Joe House Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For decades, the Vietnam War has been a Hollywood obsession. Apocalypse Now, platoon, full metal jacket, first blood. These were blockbuster films, embraced by audiences and critics alike. And for decades, they've helped us understand a painful war and understand each other. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Brian Rafter. And this is Do We Get to Win this time, how Hollywood made the Vietnam War. Listen on the big picture feed. episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key

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Some get drunk. Me? I like to fuck. That's the energy I want going into this house. We're talking about winning time. Season two, the first episode, it kicked off. We're recording this on Tuesday. The episode goes up on Sunday when you'll be able to hear this pie.

And House, I wanted to start before we get into where this season is going. We're basically tracking along the Showtime Lakers from their inception to their glory years. And one would assume at some point, maybe a little bit of a fall or a hiccup. I wanted to see where you were on this project as a whole, because you and I are situated in this very uncomfortable middle ground where on one hand, this show is literally made for us. An HBO prestige drama. with some comedy, with some filmmaking chops, with some big actors

about probably one of the formative basketball eras of our entire lives, maybe cultural eras of our entire lives, the popularization of the NBA. And yet this show is kind of situated right between it helps to know a lot, but the more you know, the more annoyed you might get watching it

because of the little liberties the show takes or the little sort of expletive moments where they feel the need to tell you everything about what Jerry Westhead, Paul Westhead's system was. And it's just a very funny place to watch this show. And it's a very funny place to comment on it. But I haven't ever talked to you about it.

So I wanted to see, what do you think of the winning time project across the board? CR, you know, this is not surprising that you walk in and it's very gentle, this very gracious, this very, this soft introduction of house into this, this forum. because you know from some of the text communication that I have very strong feelings about this.

And, you know, I feel very lucky because the podfather and I were together out in Los Angeles at the outset of this entire project. And he and I were able to review the first couple episodes. And at that point in time, I'm looking back now, I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to have a problem. I have a threshold problem. I have a problem. I know who these people are. I've been living with many of these people for decades in my life. I have opinions of these people because of their public persona, because of their outstanding contributions to the development of modern basketball. The problem I have really focuses primarily on a handful of characters that

I feel like I know the best that come to me in this melodrama as so one note. And I have to confess to you if these guys just had different names. Like I get what the series is doing. This is fictionalized. It's modified. These are composites. If you just took Jerry West and called him Tony East. Harry Beck.

Yes. Let's do Larry Bird, Barry nerd. And Paul, Paul Westhead, Saul test head, Saul tested lead. I don't, you could keep calling Boston Boston. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah. Do Boston.

And you could still keep depicting Boston as a bunch of like absolute inbred Irish maniacs. Yeah. Who, you know, with riot when the Lakers win games like in the finals. But yes, this threshold challenge remains. It detracted from my enjoyment of last season. It really primarily, what got in my head was Jerry West himself, the person having a principled objection to this. And I'm going to be a Jerry West apologist, you know, for the portrayal. I love the treatment that the actor is giving, but it's so one note.

and we will get into this, this new second season and Jerry West's role in it, at least in, in the premiere of season two. But I want to expand the space a little bit. Maybe it comes in later episodes, but it just is not giving him enough credit. And poor Paul Westhead. I mean,

our reintroduction to Paul Westhead in this premiere of season two, the brother's like, my wife just taught me this new problem. called Moose. God damn it, Paul Westhead. Seriously? So this is a challenge, but I'm here for it, CR.

Okay, so Joe, are you able to separate Joe House, the basketball fan from Joe House, the TV watcher? Are you able to watch this and say, am I being entertained over the course of, and let's be frank, a very long, it's a 69-minute episode, I believe 68-minute episode to start the second season?

I'm coming off of a bunch of shows I've been watching that I've been right around that 42-minute, 44-minute sweet spot. And so it's a little bit of an adjustment to go back to this. But are you able to be like, you know what? At the end of that, that was pretty entertaining television. Or is the basketball Joe House in your head constantly just saying they're doing Jerry West wrong? Or that's not what Magic would have said there. Let's quick sub-tangent.

Why the fuck are all these episodes 65 to 70 minutes? I think that this is a sort of a, I want to say that I was a, I was a fantasy one. I think that it's important sometimes to take a step back and just be like, if you had told yourself at 17, yes, at 22,

that one day they're going to make a television show about the Los Angeles Lakers, you're going to tell me that the episodes were three and a half hours long. I probably would have been like, sounds great. Sounds like the only TV I want to watch. Yeah.

So I don't know why they've chosen to do that, but I think it speaks to, a larger issue that this show I thought was going to wrap its arms around for the second season, which is there may be too many character cooks in the character kitchen. I think that it's a really,

really well-made show, like the direction, the way that they play with all these different camera styles and all these different film stock styles, Super 8, VHS, then it's widescreen, then it's like,

it's just, they do an awesome job making the show. It feels like a very cool, subjective LA in the 80s. I love hanging out in it. But I think to your point about Jerry West,

if they were going to say like, okay, you know what, we're going to make a fictionalized but probing character study of this guy who broken down after years of maybe being underpaid, he's the literal logo.

He never really gets a piece of that money-wise. And then he's overseeing the explosion of basketball as a global entertainment product, like putting together this, possibly the most entertaining sporting team ever put together. And make that into like basically there will be blood with Jerry West, all in, all in. And you could take that and apply it to Pat Riley or Magic or Kareem or

so many people across the board. And instead they're trying to do everything all at once. Instead, they're trying to fit it all in. And that's why I think we wind up with the 69 minute episode because even in the second season, rather than concentrating or focusing, they're still continuing to widen the aperture. And now we have the Jerry Bus family feud and we're getting Jimmy and Johnny involved, more and more and more characters.

It's the whole story. And I appreciate the ambition of it. And I really am in the sweet spot of this. Like the characters, the real life people that I don't know and have any background with are the Bus family. So if you want to treat me to a slightly fictionalized version of the development of the bus family, that dynamic. So the thing for me, just going back to season one, I also ultimately enjoyed it.

And what really saved it for me was the relationship between Jerry Buss and his mother. Yeah. Every single scene with Sally Field and Jesse Riley was tits up. I'm in. I loved it. It really, I feel like I was learning something. Now, I understand there was creative input and, you know, you're really trying to build a context for something. And it might have been entirely fictionalized.

I really don't know and I didn't care to try and do any research on that because I enjoyed it. It created a sensible context for the rise of the Lakers and his mom's role, like the bookkeeping, all that. It was very rich. Pick Fair as a site in season one. it in season two all over again. But to your point, here's the thing. There are a handful of storylines that I feel like are so prominent, so well known, it would have been fine to give them short shrift.

I really don't get anything out of the development of the relationship between Magic Johnson and his future wife, Cookie. I know they get married. I know the outcome here. They have kids. It all works out. So the twists and turns of it. Now, we did get the beautiful.

line that magic delivered that I repeated at the outset of this podcast, which is, you know, he likes women. It is his vice. And it gives, you know, honestly, a lot of comic relief to the program, season one

and season two. But I think this show would be incredible if it was like 52 minutes. No joke. There's absolutely enough there to focus in on a handful of characters that are sort of important to the basketball part of it.

And what we get at the beginning of season two is the arrival of the NBA on kind of the national scene because of, you know, the, what the Lakers have done and the showtime element and there are funny elements, funny moments, you know, ESPN, Jerry, Jerry goes up to Bristol and has a meeting with this fledgling cable company that, of course, Larry O'Brien shits all over because he's a moron. that that's the caricature that they have created for him. Yeah. And maybe it's on target.

You know, by all accounts, it might be right on target. But in any event, a tightening up would make sense to me. Your overall sense, though, I love living in the 80s. This is so wonderful. You know what I love? The music. I love these songs, Chris Ryan. They're so good.

The show does not pull any punches. It opens with Princes Let's Go Crazy. It opens with the Lakers winning the first. game of the 1984 finals in Boston. And this is another, it's another kind of like, they're a victim of their own success in some ways here. Because we get Adrian Brody in full Pat Riley, giving an absolute like succession level post game speech to these guys on the bus

after they've won in Boston. His hair is slicked back, which, you know, you know we're going to get at some point. Yes. And this is sort of, An interesting question for this show overall, as the industry that makes it changes, is you could make a 10 season winning time. You could make a 15 season winning time. You could make a 17 season winning time.

You could do from Magic through Kobe's Pau Gasol run, you could do it all the way up until a couple of years ago if you wanted to. We could have a LeBron Lakers show. Now, how quickly they want to burn through history is the question. that's at sort of the, it's a tension in this show because they were already showing us 1984. You know that's where they want to go. They want to go to the return of the Jedi already and they haven't gotten through Star Wars yet, you know, and I'm kind of curious, you know, this whole Magic Johnson injury, which I think is going to sort of loom over this entire season. He's out for 100 days. It was a legendary injury. There's an incredible Sports Illustrator article about him recovering

and his sort of like role in the team. And one of the things I love about watching this show is that even if it's corny in some places, is it harkens back to a time in sports when we didn't know everything right away. And so I'll start, we can start breaking down the second, the first episode of the second season by saying this,

there's this great scene in a steakhouse. And it's like, Ourbacks there, Jerry West, Jerry Buss. It's right after the draft. And the Celtics of Mee's, made all these deals to get Mikhail and they get Parrish from the Warriors. And Red Hourback walks up to Jerry Bus and he's like, my front court is now Kevin McHale, Larry Bird, and Robert Parrish. And Jerry Bush is like, yeah, that sounds okay.

We'll fucking see you in the finals. And then he sits down and you're just like, is this how guys used to find out about like who was on a rival team was like eventually somebody would mention it to them or you would find out at training camp who was on the Celtics? because this is pre-woge. It's so good. It's said it luggers, I think, right? They're all in New York because of the draft.

It seems like it's all the owners. They're at their own collective tables. And right, the true dramatic tension is the Lakers and the Celtics. And Red can't wait to come over and tell Jerry Buss about, you know, what he's done. And Buss immediately, as soon as Red walks away, takes it dead serious. It's one of the moments I was like, Wow, that I understand that it's completely fiction, but I really, I really dug it. He turns to Bill Sharman.

He's like, did they just eat our fucking lunch again in this draft? And it was a real question. Yeah. It was a real question. So, yeah, that aspect of it for sure. And what you're getting at right, like we have to try and take out of our heads the meta world that we live in where information is coursing from one ear to the other, you know, constantly all synopsies.

firing at all times. There were a lot of dark moments where by dark, I mean, their information, there wasn't information available out there. Literally living in the dark cages. To even explain it further to our audience, and this is probably going to sound sort of stupid, but when you were, when we were kids, if your team was like lucky enough to be in the World Series or if you were following a National League team and then the World Series would start, the American League team would come out and you'd be like, I have no idea who these fucking guys are. Like you might have their baseball cards and you followed the box scores and you followed the league leaders. But like you did not get to see the Orioles play very much if you were a Phillies fan.

This was literally the point I was going to make. This is, I mean, we're telling on ourselves here. I could name two Phillies. That 1983 World Series with the Orioles. It was Mike Schmidt. Right. Maybe what was Luzinski on that team? Yes.

Yeah. That's it. Schmidt to Luzinski. There you go. And that was sort of where we were. Or until, I mean, you would basically like rely on Street and Smith, you know, basketball almanacs and stuff like that and Athlon journals and Sports Illustrated and the newspaper. And for casual fans, I'm sure that the Celtics front court was not like, oh, they got that kid from Minnesota. And I've always thought Parrish had a lot of potential on the Warriors.

And what a great job by our back. There was no like winners and losers of free agency back then. No, no. Do you might trade, trade winners and losers, trade grades? No, sorry. draft grades, no chance. So I'm really here in winning time. I got to say that I am here for all of the basketball stuff.

And that really culminates in the actual basketball scenes. And I think if you told me before this series started, I was going to say it was going to live and die on its basketball scenes. Because basketball is something that's very, very hard to do well. There's probably I could count on like my one hand, how many things where I felt like, man, the basketball in that movie or in that show is exemplary. And you go to white men can jump or above the rim. And it's usually guys who have some basketball experience.

But I thought the scrimmage is a really good example. The scrimmage that takes place where Magic is essentially trying to January 6th, Kareem. It's a mutiny. Yeah. And take over the offense and say Kareem needs to basically be farmed out. And then we'll bring him in as a closer once we've got the lead. And Kareem takes umbrage to that. And they have this scrimmage of basically Showtime versus Kareem.

and it is essentially a precursor to the Jimmy Butler getting the guy, the B team together to play against Carl Towns and Jeff Teague, those guys. Carl Anthony Towns. You're ramping it all the way up. I love it. So what do you think of the hoop stuff in this, in this show? I have the tiniest complaint. And it's this. Kareem is as tall as F. And my only tiniest complaint,

the basketball is legit. Okay. Let's start with that. I love Norm Nixon. He moves. That actor is beautiful and he has handles with both hands and the way he moves He moves like a basketball player Magic's character moves like a basketball Like you know, it's all shot properly

My tiny quibble And you know that the actor playing Norm Nixon Is Norm Nixon's son, right? I mean like you can't make that shit up Kareem was always above the rim They sometimes have Kareem Like at rim level or a tiny bit below Kareem was never a blow

the rim because he's fucking 7-4. Yeah. So all of those sky hooks, every time he took a hook, they should have taken the hoop and brought it down to nine feet for the actor. That's my only quibble. I would love to know whether they did do stuff like that, but I do think for like, when they're playing

Showtime, you know, they're out there on rollerblades with that camera and you can really feel the electricity of what it must have been like for there to be this revolution on the court. It moves great. Now, one of the things for the purposes of the context of this season two premiere, we're introduced right

away to the, what is it, the disease of me? Is this what, what, what we're, I mean, essentially, yeah, I mean, it's basically communicated by Paul Westhead comes into training camp. He's having lunch with, with Pat Riley. And Pat Riley's like, I got this new offense, these new wrinkles that we're going to offer tactically. And Westhead starts talking about Othello and personalities and how we have to manage personalities. And so that's really how it's introduced. And yeah, I mean, it is essentially the dramatization of the disease of me.

And magic is seen walking with teammates trying to rally them to the notion of an up-tempo style and a confrontation with Kareem. And magic is professing that he is not afraid of. of Kareem and his teammates are like, we're fucking afraid of Kareem. Yeah. That guy is karate. We're afraid of yeah. Hey, magic, if you want to go take a shot

by all means. And so we have this depiction of magic trying, you know, initiating a conversation with Kreme. Well, some of the guys have been saying, you know what, I could kind of see their point of view. This idea of a more uptempo kind of offense as the prevalent

offense and sort of less accommodation perhaps of Kareem. And it's immediately cut off because Karim's wife, who is very much pregnant, comes into the, to the scene and Magic's like, damn, okay, we'll have this conversation later. Yeah. And funny enough that there is an undercurrent, again, because it's 69 minutes, you can have these serial undercurrents, you know, the birth of children plays a role in this, in this premiere episode, Magic's child, Karim's child.

Karim's child, the juxtaposition of those two and the path that those two are on and, you know, tie it to this quasi-mutiny that doesn't last very long because Kareem gets hurt and then magic gets hurt. So we're not doing up-tempo showtime throughout this upcoming season, right? No, but we are getting introduced to, I'll just move this up in the rundown that I have here, but we are getting introduced to the system, you know, which is Paul West. Westhead's, you know, Westhead, I think, is a little bit of a victim, and he's a Philly guy, so I'm a little bit partially used to coach it LaSalle, you know, loyal and Merrimount. So I kind of grew up with Paul Westhead, you know, coaching basketball teams that I loved. But I think that Jason Siegel is doing a decent job portraying him, but he's got to kind of play him as this enigmatic goofball. So they fucking murder him. poor soul test led

don't call don't call him paul west head because god damn it anyway you're right you're being gentle no but I'm just saying I think that they're doing

across the board there's a lot of the new replace in the old and to have the old get replaced they're putting a lot of mustard on the bread they're showing how fogg like crotchety

these older guys were about the changing times and that goes for Westhead kind of getting lost in his own persona and believing his press. And Riley slowly kind of coming into his own. It comes to Kareem wanting to play slow isolation basketball versus magic. And we'll see it again with the bus family and the younger buses kind of wanting to take their seat at the table. And in furtherance of that, the presentation of the business side of entertainment, that basketball is an entertainment vehicle.

that there is all this potential out there and this innovation, you know, I guess small eye that that Buss gets credit for in this season premiere of, you know, tying up his talent, overpaying for his talent and using, you know, credit anticipating something having to do with the salary cap moving in his direction. So he's going to be able to lock up his talent and, you know, prove to the league that LA doesn't chintz, that L.A. is a destination and that all of those players, you know, are regarded

as valuable and very quick subtangent. This is another thing that bothered me with this further desecration of Larry Best, Jerry West. If anybody is going to understand how the salary cap might be moving and, you know, trying to like take advantage capitalize on your own personnel and fitting into that. I feel like, I mean, he wins executive of the year 50,000 times over the next 30 years.

Yeah, he literally is the architect of like five championship teams. He's honestly probably the preeminent team builder of our lifetime. So the idea that he's just like, I'm not paying this guy one set more than $85,000. Oh, we made $800,000. Fuck. But look, it shows that this show kind of does have its finger on the pulse of a lot of debates. Look, we may find it

a little bit on the nose when we watch it on winning time, but for the rest of the week, we're barraged with some older, retired basketball player, bitching and moaning about what some newer basketball player is getting paid because he didn't get $300 million in five years.

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with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. I wanted to ask you, you know, as somebody who's probably a little bit more familiar with the world of finance than I am. But there's a moment in the oncoming free agency scene. So the bus family, Jerry West, a bunch of the sort of front office people are all assembled in Jerry Bus's office. And he's talking about how he wants to put like a zero on the end of everybody's contract to lock them up long term. And everybody is just sort of like, Jerry,

you can't do that. We don't have the money. And Jeannie comes in. And she's like, well, Ronald Reagan is president. It's all about growth. Cash is cheap. Debt's okay. Is that an accurate summation of Reaganomics? Having the benefit of perfect hindsight, sure. Yes.

Of course. Dead is good. Nobody needs cash. You just borrow. Credit is the new cash. Yeah. And nothing bad came from that. Right.

Nothing bad. That's exactly right. And we do have the continuation. speaking of finance matters, of the monopoly trope. I mean, monopoly continues to play this prominent role and it is the device by which we get some of the interaction

amongst the bus family. It felt like unnecessary, the poor, the humiliation of poor John. Why did poor John have to take it like that? Johnny is, is he still in the mix right now? Because obviously Jeannie had, you know, Jimmy was in charge, right? Yes, yes.

And then Jeannie sort of usurped him. him in control of the team with magic a few years back. But where did Johnny go off to? I don't want to say because I would make a joke and then we'll finish this pot and I'll find out that he passed away five years ago. Then I'll feel terrible. No, he's still with us. Okay, thank God.

All right. Well, then I'll make the joke. You know, he's with his country band is where he is. He's been playing country music for the last 50 years. I don't think he's had anything to do with anything for a while, right? Yeah, it seems like he owns some. comedy clubs. He's just kind of doing his thing. Living his life.

So let me ask you a little bit about the bus family. I think that this is one itch that's hard to scratch because succession, but the Lakers is sitting right there. And not having it really be about

basketball at all and just using these great actors that they have in this show. It's kind of like a really interesting what if there? What do you think of the family? Well, you know, is it ironic or not ironic that at the beginning of the season and all of the trailer and everything, they are touting the fact that it's the production team brought to you by the executive producers of succession. Oh, okay. All right. Well,

you're putting me on notice, I feel like I'm here for it because give me another loop of succession. but with these people in this context where, you know, you know my complaints with succession and the way that it went. It was a heliocentric show and they killed the sun. They killed Lugodontich. And it upset me and I had a hard time recovering from it. This one because we have like real life tentacles to kind of, you know, grab onto and tie ourselves to and watch it.

these kids battle out and we know that there is competence. We know like I don't have to be, I don't have to suspend my disbelief to think that the genie. Now they've done a great job of setting up Jeannie as being competent. It starts with Gabby Rothman recognizing this in her potential in season one, her disappointment Jeannie and not being, you know, sort of fast-tracked into a role. and her dad's inclination to make it a family business. This is a very rich area.

I'm here for all of it. If this whole show turns into that bus family drama, and that was the predominant thing, I would watch the F out of this and enjoy it, and I could set aside all of my distaste for the poor treatment of poor Paul Westhead and poor Jerry West receive. I hope it goes this way, C.R.

I just know that if I were making this show, I would not be able to resist all the things that they're doing. Like I would need to just do the Pat Riley story. I would need to do magic. Just like the same way I would have needed to have Spencer Haywood in that first season. You know what I mean? Like how could you resist it? Love Spencer Haywood so much.

And that was one of the highlights of the season was Wood Harris and Spencer. Even if he was a little bit older looking, I think that was a fantastic arc. I agree. Let's keep moving through this first episode. I want to talk to you about the knee injury. This is another one that is like, I think probably for a lot of people. who are grown up and lived through Kevin Durant blowing out his Achilles and coming back and being Kevin Durant. It's hard to explain. If you heard that knee pop, it was nine times out of 10.

That was it for the career. We would expect to see a player come back with a pronounced limp. Or just be a shell of themselves. A shell. Exactly right. If they came back at all. This guy blew his knee out. What we can do is kind of like stand him out there for 12 minutes and see if he can get some, some offense going, like, from the corner or something. Absolutely true. I can't, if, if the pod, if Bill Simmons was here, he would immediately be able to name a player that fits what we're describing perfectly. Well, let me, let me not disrespect you.

Can you think of anybody like, it's not Willis Reed? Well, no, but, I mean, like, thankfully, Magic Johnson's animated leg cast starts telling us about the history of knee injuries prior to Magic Johnson, including Dave DeBusher and Bob Lanier and a bunch of other guys. who were just never the same after their injury. And I just remember this growing up where it would just be like, oh, man, this is tragic.

And, you know, this was back in the days, pre-NIL, pre-N-E, like, you know, these guys getting decent rookie contracts. If a dude blew his knee-out before he got paid, man, that guy was selling tires. Like, it was tough, man. You're right. You're absolutely right about that. Well, that is to the credit of this show,

and I'm eager now to get into the next episodes. I deliberately, thank you, by the way, for paving the way for me to get the entire second season. Sure. I withstood the urge to just clock through a bunch of it. Yeah, I mean, I think they're releasing it week to week, so I'm going to probably watch it week to week. I feel like I'm going to do the same thing.

Yeah. It's a fun Sunday night thing to do. It's also so goddamn long to capture everything that happened in the premiere. I watched it twice. It took a long time. Taking notes and all the rest of it. I mean, we get magic back and he can play, right? I mean, we see him out on the playground in Detroit, you know,

trying to find the rhythm all over again. And we see him enter the arena of, you know, a Lakers game that's occurring in the crowd, the murmur and the crowd and everything. But we know that that, Magic can play, right? Yeah. We're kind of skipping to the end here because it's the last scene of the episode.

We can go back and talk about a couple other things before we go. But the last scene of the episode is a Laker Celtics game where magic walks out onto the floor and the whole forum goes nuts. And Bird immediately sticks one in his eye and is just like have a seat. And I got to say, I can't remember how Bill Phil is about this. I'm glad he's not here. I think the bird, the bird guy is awesome. the guy playing bird is awesome.

He looks like Bird. He plays like Bird. I think it's pretty good. Are we confident? Are we confident? See, the thing that I, again, I feel like they walked very close to the line with the racism. Very close

to the, in season one. Yeah. Now, if we can put that in the rear view mirror, because I don't know if the factual record supports a background for Larry Bird. Now they used, you know, these fictional buddies of his to kind of convey this in season one. But obviously, you know, there is this tension, the Boston white identity against the

showtime, you know, black identity associated with the Lakers. And, you know, there is that tension is expressed pretty poignantly in season one with a couple of Larry's buddies having beers with him. Yes. Yeah. I think that in general, I mean, it's a pretty like flat depiction of the Boston sports community. But I say that as a Philadelphian who could really give a shit how Boston sports fans feel. But I think that they're doing it to like create tension. And yeah, I mean, I think that the thing with Magic's injury is like I mentioned, there is this really great Sports Illustrated article about his recovery. We know he's recovered. We know he recovers. We know what happens after he recovers, whether or not they should be spending a tremendous amount of time

on the 100 days that he was away from the team and what the team went through. This 80, 881 season that they're documenting is a weird season. And, you know, I think that there was a lot. Last year when Waz and me and Bill were doing this show on prestige, like, we were always like, is it a spoiler to say this happened? Is it a spoiler to say that happened? I mean, this is very interesting to see if these guys put all their cheque, dips into what happens in the 80-81 season.

It's going to be a pretty interesting season of TV, but it's also going to feel slow for basketball fans, I think. Well, obviously, they're going to take license, but also the fact that we started with 1984 makes me think that we're going to get four years worth of basketball over these seven episodes. I do feel like that is in play. And you know what, we'll do this way. We'll just say from here on out in this podcast,

we're going to quote, quote, spoil what we, you know, what could happen. Now, winning time is not going to change functionally, like, what happened to the Lakers. Like, ultimately, I think there would just be too much of an upset if they just were like, oh, and the Lakers won the 80-81 finals. That's not going to happen. They could do it. So, do you spend 10 episodes so that the Lakers can get their asses kicked by Moses? No.

I don't think so. Not if they showed Pat. I think you're right. Not if they showed Pat the way it is. At the pace we're going, we're not getting slick back Pat Riley for another season and a half. They set in motion for three or four big things that I feel like will they provide the arc for what season two is going to consist of if indeed we're going from the championship summer of 1980 into first game of the finals of 1984. And that is like the explosion of basketball, the business of basketball, the bust family, the sort of early wranglings and tanglings, magic and bird is perfect foils.

And then, you know, the Lakers themselves finding that identity that becomes, you know, the real identity. Those are just like a handful. I'm sure you're tied into a couple others. No, I mean, but, you know, the interesting thing is now that we're talking about it, you remember how the series starts is with Magic's HIV announcement, which obviously does not get shown. I mean, it begins with that,

but we don't ever get to, we're not in the late 80s in the show or whatever that was. It's, it's, it's, they might show us 84 and 84 may not come back around for another 15 hours of TV. I don't know the answer to this.

Is there a season three? I think that this is a dependable show for them. I don't know how much it costs to make, just based on the cast alone. it seems like it's got to be expensive it's got to be expensive but it also feels like for as controversial as it may have been in its first season with certain NBA figures I think that there's a lot of basketball fans out there and I predicted that it was going to be a huge hit because I was like the cut the you know like the idea of like a TV show for

Lakers fans there are a lot of Lakers fans man to you the to the conversation we had at the very outset you have to remember I have to remember like there is a there are a couple generations that are absolutely willing behind me, that are absolutely willing to suspend disbelief and just take on whatever fictionalization. Those folks don't have like, you know, Jerry West winning, uh, GM of the year and all the rest of it and, you know, watching him magically transformed the Memphis Grizzlies into a competent organization. Like, you know, it's fine for that Jerry West character to be a maniac. It's totally cool. So I mean, I think you're right. It is dependable and sustainable. And it is.

in that regard, I honestly felt like this season premiere. It felt like to me, episode 11. Yeah. We had 10 episodes of the season and now we're on season two. It's episode 11 to me, C.R. Yeah. And I hope we get to keep doing this all the way up through where Jerry West, gift wraps Powell Gasol to the Lakers. How is anything else you wanted to hit before we get out of here. I'm looking at the list. I feel like, you know, we're going to see magic. Keep having sex. Oh, by the way, if anybody was wondering, Jerry Buss is going to keep talking to us. He's going to look right in the camera and tell us some stuff. I wanted to know when in this episode was going to be the first time.

I have him at the 13 minute mark doing a quick exposition on the business of basketball and how this is going to be the advantage that the Lakers have. And the show closes with him doing a bit to us about the behavior of, of the Adam because you know he is he's a doctor. Well, and then I also think that we got it in the first, in the Boston scene where he just, just like, yeah, motherfucker, we won. That's right.

That's the number one. That's a great point. Because I skipped over that, right? We, we, it is him looking directly at the camera like, yeah. Yeah. Here we go. And then immediately a riot. In terms of like what you're most excited for for the rest of this season,

was there anything that got tipped off in the first, episode that you're like, I can't wait to see this play out. For me, I think it's Westhead and Riley. It's the system stuff. That's a great one, except for my only hesitation with that is poor Westhead. He's such a diminished character. He's not up to the fight. They're playing him as a dweeb.

They're playing him as a dweeb. That's all. I just love the bus boys. So everything having to do with the bus family, I'm there for, I love it's a real life thing. that Jerry moved the whole family into Pickfair. I look this up as like, they're like old enough to be out living and also

they have some means. And Jeannie was so thrilled when he's like, I want you to live with me. She's like, oh, that would be incredible because she wants her father's approval. It's like really great family dynamic stuff there. Not that dissimilar from the succession stuff, looking for father's approval constantly.

Then he's like, and I want the brothers. And they all. did it. And they did it in real life, C.R. It's pretty amazing. Joe, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks to Jack for producing today. I'm sure we'll have more winning time stuff as the weeks go on, but this was a blast. And it was always awesome to talk hoops and TV with you. CR, it was a true test of my will to not ask you to do a Wayne Jenkins version of Jerry West. But we've hit it all the way through. The pot is over. I can't ask for it. Honestly, I think Jason Clark is getting pretty close to be in his own kind of Wayne Jenkins in this.

we may have to introduce a new voice. You might have to do Jerry West. I know. I think Jerry West. You are the master. I'll see you later, man. Work a see you, see, see, you see.