The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty' Episode 2 Recap

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

The Ringer's Bill Simmons and Joe House discuss episode 2 of HBO's 'Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty'. Hosts: Bill Simmons and Joe House Producer: Kyle Crichton  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight on what people in show business are actually talking about. Multiple times a week, I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know, journalists, insiders, all of whom can break down the hottest topics in entertainment to tell you what's really going on. Listen now. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue.

Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Bad advice? You talking to me? Kayak, got that right. Good sleep is everything. That's why Ali's science back support

is made with a blend of melatonin and L-D-N-Ean for both kiddos and grown-ups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help. Erasing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Ollie's sleep solutions for the whole family at ollie.com.

That's OLL-L-Y.com. It's a prestige TV podcast episode two of Winning Time. On HBO, my name is Bill Simmons. I'm here with Joe House. We broke down episode one as well. This one dives into Jerry West. Deeply.

We see Jerry West have sex. Yeah. We see him literally. We see the logo pull out the logo. I watched this episode the second time on an airplane. Oh, no. From Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles. Next to a horrified person who's like,

I had it. I had it angled in a way so that it wasn't, but the person behind me might have. been able to look through the seat. I didn't know the scene was coming. This was an important episode because I really like the pilot. It's set up a lot of stuff, but then we need to keep moving. You need to keep me interested in a story that I already know. I already know all the beats of the story. How are you going to hook me in? So in the first one, we get hooked in because bus has pulled it off. He bought the Lakers. He did it. The last time we see him is in the

core in the forums like, this is all mine. Episode two, now he's got two foes. His foes are Jerry West, who is his coach and GM in the great Red Arbeck. And I have a lot of thoughts on the Red Arbeck characterization and portrayal by Michael Chickles, but we'll get to it a little bit later. But short term, we see Jerry West having a one-night stand. We see Jerry West. who this flashback to, he wins the title and he's still not happy.

Is the one night stand the night? Seems like it's the night he won the title. Because he has the confetti in his hair. Yeah. And they play that song, is that all there is. Right. Which is like the classic. I just climbed the mountain top and I'm still miserable.

What's just happened? So it's set in like, oh, this guy's going to be wildcard. How did you feel watching West depicted like this? Well, it also features, him as a kid shooting baskets and his dad abusing his mom. Yeah. Which he's talked about in his book and stuff. Yeah.

And so what we, we have the basis for understanding why it is that he can't be happy, it seems. Yeah. And what we've gotten from all of episode one into this episode is an inability to be happy, you know, under any kind of circumstances. He's literally driving himself crazy as the coach of the Lakers. And not fun to work with, doesn't seem like that.

Not fun to work with. It doesn't seem awesome. Not fun to work to be. Bill Sharman has to climb in through his window to talk to him at one point. Not fun to be around. Tough one. So we have that. We have, we have bus gets to go to the owner's meeting, which was fun.

Which I enjoyed that. madmany at this point, right? But I think accurate. Like, they didn't really have it. The owner's meeting was fucking thrown together at a hotel. The draft was, you know, not made for TV. This is the league. They're just trying to get by. The coin flip they

do in the first episode. That's how they did it. It's like, hey, do you have a coin? Oh, we got to grab one. Well, and speaking of Madman, I love the bar cart. The bar car plays a big role. The bar, you know, the midday drink is a prominent player in this thing. Well, they

I also did a good job with Lawrence O'Brien, the commissioner, in these first two things. Who was a bozo? He was just the worst commissioner. I tried to rip him the shreds in my book because I just couldn't believe how bad he was. They named a trophy after him for Christa. They named the trophy after him. They should have named it after like a poop he took because he sucked. He was a bad commissioner.

Really did it, really. There's a reason when Stern comes in and things are immediately professionalized because Stern was actually competent, unlike Larry O'Brien. So we see him. then we get a little glimpse of stern. We get stern. Did you, that was one of the casting that seemed off to me.

I don't remember what he looked like when he was younger. That's the thing, right? Because he's, he's this in the, in the show, he strikes me as like small of stature, not very,

well, he was small. No, but I mean, and like, uh, um, also small in personality.

And also like, you know, he's, he's doing some, you know, connecting, a little connective tissue kind of stuff. He's running around the room a little bit.

If I'd given notes on this episode, I would have made Stern. I think by the time we get to this part of O'Brien's run, Stern is basically doing a lot. Yeah. And I think he's a little like what Adam Silver was like near the end of Stern's run when Stern started to lose it. And Adam was taking a bigger role and everything. I think Stern, he wasn't just like, you know, this league official being thrown around. Like he was pretty much of a power player at this point.

Okay. I don't know. I thought he could have been a... We didn't get any power player out of this episode. Well, my thing is, if you're going to make Red Arbac a cartoon character, let's have some fun with Early Stern. Sure. Like, the gloves are off at this point.

I agree with that. We have Jerry West, like, having a, you know, pretty crazy hotel sex encounter. We got Red Arbac who's the worst guy in the world. We have your guy Jack Kent Cook, who's basically racist. Let's have some fun with Stern. I agree. bus goes through the owners man he meets stern he meets red red red's a victim

then we got the magic part magic's battling his family he's moving in laa they're worried his head's getting a little big where the monies might change him he's got the girlfriend cookie yeah who's brazenly cheating on all through michigan she's got some new guy they made sure to make that guy as short as possible you know that you know that's headed for a showdown so they set up that one. We have West who wants Nixon to be the point guard over magic. We have bus who's like, not just West wanting that. He tells Nixon, you're going to be my guy. Yeah. So we see all that chess board stuff with that. And then we see bus really trying to figure out, I need revenue. How do I turn the forum and there's something bigger than it is? Which I thought was

the stuff I knew the least about. Yeah. How do we have more dates? It's stuff that seems simple now, That's, like when I, like in Boston in the 70s and 80s, we had the Celtics and Bruins. We had the bean pot. And then the circus. Oh, yeah. The circus must have come through. What about Harlem Globetrotters? Haram Globetrotters would stop by.

Yeah, there would be some figure skating like after the 1980 Olympics. Yeah, ice capades. Yeah, ice capades, whatever. The circus was the big one. The circus was not things out for like a week and a half. Yeah, I was going to say even longer. Get the fuck out and go on some giant road trip. Yep.

So I don't, it's not like, well, the part I don't understand is they made it seem like the forum that couldn't fill the dates, but it seemed like it was conceivable to fill at least some dates. And I think that's a big part of why Claire Rothman is playing this prominent role, both in episode one and again, here in episode two, because I think she helped innovate. Yes, she did. And he makes a point in the first episode, this was a smart little nod to, you know, the bus character goes to her and says, you're a legend for what you did in whatever her previous job was in terms of filling that place up or get a rock band or something like that. Yeah. And you can clearly see that he has that in his head. We don't know about what he's going to do at the forum club yet, but we know that's coming to, that he's going to turn that into a destination nightclub. I mean, there's all kinds of, yes,

there are many different innovations to come. I, if we're talking seesaw, I was so much, much more interested in bust than magic. Oh, for sure. I think the weak part for me for the first two episodes is how magic-centric the show was. I would have actually scaled some of the magic. We should mention, by the way, it was directed by Joan Hill, who did a really good job. Yeah. It felt very Adam McKayish, even though it wasn't Adam McKay, but I thought it was too much time spent on magic.

I agree with you because you don't need to keep on the family dynamic. I understand that you want to create something about the connection with cookie and how important cookie is to him and create the drama around will she or won't she end up going out to LA with him. But yeah, we got a lot of magic background that felt like it was like, you know, the boyfriend. It felt like magic porn, obviously. It was like let's like ride the magic train. But oh, oh, we can't. Well, yeah. Boy, oh boy. But the Kareem piece of it, I was, you know, they mentioned his, his girlfriends there at that point, Shera, who when he did. did his autobiography. He wrote a lot about her in the auto bi, giant steps, which I remember

reading when I was a kid and just being like, wow, Kareem, his thoughts on things? Contemplative, thoughtful, deep. We said this when we did the first episode. I just feel like there was more meat on the bone with Kareem. And I would have shifted that. I would have given bus a little more. I was really interested in the dynamics of the business in Hollywood and how he fits in. He instinctively realizes, and I think he says in the second episode, he says in the second episode, episode that, and he says it to his mom, Sally Field, another, another overqualified actress. And he's like, this is my gateway to be with all these fucking billionaires. Now, this is eventually why all the guys in the last 20 years by sports teams, right?

It's why John Henry looks at the Red Sox and he's like, nobody, I'm this billionaire. Nobody knows who the fuck I am. Now I'm the Red Sox owner. Everyone knows who the fuck I am. Yes. And that's, people realize that I feel like around the 2000s, but no, Nobody saw that in the late 70s. Definitely not. That was not a, that was, it took the vision of bus to create, you know, showtime and to make it a spectacle to make it, you know, that desirable of an asset that's, you know, just grown into what it is now.

Here's what I don't get about that, though. Steinbrenner's already in full bloom with the Yankees, right? Steinbrenner buys the Yankees in 1973, gets suspended by baseball for a year because of his, whatever he's involved in some political scandal. Comes back mid-70s, Reggie shows up, and the Yankees become the biggest thing in the earth. And Steinbrenner becomes really famous.

I would say he was one of the most famous people of our childhood who was an athlete, right? In sports? Sure. He's like Steinbrenner, Howard Cocell, who else would you have? Charlie Finley? I mean, OJ.

OJ was a player, though. Oh, you're talking about... I'm saying non-athletes. Oh, I see. Okay. I don't know. Howard Cosell? secretaryate.

But signbreader is massive. I'm surprised. That's what's so cool about bus. Like he actually saw, not only can I, not only is this a great business, not only can I, this is a distressed asset I can blow up.

That's it. But I can be a power broker now. Baseball ruled the roost back then. It did. NBA was way, way, way behind. Yeah, he saw something in L.A. specifically with the celebrity. and its connection to wealth that I don't think, I mean, I kind of, I could have used maybe

in episode one, like maybe 30 seconds, 60 seconds on how he made his money. How did he get to his success in the first place? Well, and then did you feel like they, because there was always a rumor, maybe it'll come up in later episodes that Donald Sterling fronted him the 15 million. That would have been, you know. I always thought that's why he was so loyal to Sterling to the bitter end. Maybe so. Never tried to, you know, knock them out of L.A. or anything. because Sterling helped them, but they didn't go there in the show. Nope, but they are pals. They have a shared interest.

Oh, they were pals. They were pals. But, yeah, I would have wanted a little more time on that. I would have gotten less magic. And Kareem and his relationship with his girlfriend, who by all counts kind of settled him down a little bit. He was very zen. We get a lot of that.

I mean, it's one of the reasons he played for so long. Kareem was doing shit in the 80s that, speaking of innovation. Yoga and meditation. and he was eating really put thought into his diet and that was why he ended up playing until his 40.

Seed set stood out the first bus red dinner. Let's talk about Red Arbeck. Cartoonish villain of this, right? Which is I think a good decision. Right. They dialed him up. Way up. They dialed, I think, him up

the most. I don't think Red was this over the top. I think he was... I have no idea. Very aggressive. He always called himself. I'm a Russian Jew. I'm very aggressive. You know, whatever.

But I don't think he was like willfully unlikable. I don't know. He had a history of kicking the Lakers ass by then. He did. I just don't, I think he would have been more subtle with some of this stuff. Okay.

I actually don't even think he would have wasted this much time with bus. It is interesting to me. He indulges Buss in terms of like he's going to meet him and chat with them a little bit because he sees an opportunity for a trade potentially. He thinks he can fleece bus

early on. That's something that up to me. The other thing is, this is 1979. Yeah. What's going on in Boston at the time is we have, you know,

this is like the dark ages before bird. Yeah. We have this guy, John White Brown, shows up, who's this Kentucky, Kentucky rich guy.

He buys the Celtics. Immediately starts, fucking with the team, famously trades for Bob McAdoo. Red has assembled all these picks that's supposed to have a check error. And he trades two first round picks to the Knicks for Bob McAdoon, doesn't tell Red. So there's this one spring summer, and I think it was 78. It might have, 78 or 79. I can't remember where everybody thinks Red's going to leave.

He's going to go, he's going to go actually be the GM of the Knicks. Because the Celtics are so fucked up. He's going to leave. And Red for a couple of weeks, he's going around. And people are going, don't go, don't go, don't go. He ends up staying. And he gets John Y. Brown to sell the team, which was that famous franchise trade. Remember that?

The Quippers go to San, the Braves go to San Diego. Buffalo, right? The Buffalo Braves go to San Diego. Become the San Diego Quippers. He flips franchises with, what's his name, Irv Cohen, the Braves guy. the reason I say all this is the Celtics were kind of in shambles. Like this is when my dad's tickets, we were able to get two tickets and move right up into like the fifth row.

Yeah, right. I love those. This is when we had Marvin Bad News Barnes. This is what I wrote the prolog of my book about. I don't know if Red would have been this arrogant. I know I'm like super nitpicking. But the Celtics were on a fucking swoon. Well, he behaves like he owns the Celtics.

They treat him as though he is the owner and that he and bus are pure. and that he, because of all the success that the Lakers, the Celtics have had against the Lakers, can exert this dominion, this, this, this arrogance that, um, right. The arrogance about I've always beaten the Lakers is there, but I do feel like the Seltz are not really in a position of strength in this summer. But he's carrying himself like all the shits. Now, the team was really good that year, right?

He's got Cowens. He's got Bird as a rookie, Cedric Maxwell, Tiny Archibald. it's definitely going to be like a really good team. What's the basis for Buss's interest in having a relationship with our back at all? I didn't understand that either. Okay. So I actually think it would have been more realistic for him to be talking to read about potentially hiring them. Right.

Just make that whole park up. Yes. Why are they even having dinner together? I don't. Didn't even happen. Right. All those things. That seems crazy.

Yes. And then the end meeting, which definitely didn't happen. Right. Like, let's meet in the center of the forum. But that's why it's a TV show. This is where I think they got a little... Artistic license. Yeah, they got a little artistic license.

Yeah, a little cartoonish. The big thing was Red did feel like he could beat the Lakers every time. That's true. When we beat them in the 84 finals, a big piece of that was like, we always beat these guys. Seeing our back and West together would have made sense because West, you know, was genuinely tormented by the Celtics. those two were peers. He was the coach of the Celtic of the Lakers.

The better scene is probably Red, Bus, and West. Yeah. And West, like his head's about to explore. Right. Finally, he goes out to have a cigarette or something. Yeah. Bus ends up. So he doesn't punch our back.

What I liked about this scene, I thought Riley does a really good job in this scene. Because he's really mad at Red, right? Red's such a prank. Oh, John C. Riley does a really great job in this scene. because Red is such a prick to bus. But bus, he doesn't like raise his voice. His feelings are hurt and he's actually kind of mad.

And you see him sizing all about Powellman to play this. And he's like, Red, enjoy your meal. And he fucking leaves. Yeah. But I actually felt like that part was really up. I agree. I agree. Red puts the lobster on his bill.

I don't know. I just not sure about that. But that was a really well done scene. The next scene is the pickup basketball scene. We're magic. goes to the guy who's dating cookie and he wants to embarrass someone in the pickup game.

It fits what we ever, you know, our complaint. It's just too much. Like what point, what are we getting out of it? With all of that said, I enjoyed watching it.

Well, because it's basketball. Yeah, it's like, oh, cool basketball. And it's pickup. And it's pickup.

And it's on the playground talking shit. But like, it shows magic as, as just an out and out bully and I guess it's supposed to be about you know the lengths he'll go to to you know keep cookie and it be an alpha dog yeah well but like he he's he's he's he's the alpha dog he's already the alpha dog he's magic Johnson you know conqueror of uh he won the NCAA tournament and he's about

to go to the lakers like well you know you don't need to go on on the basketball court and humiliate this much shorter church-going shoe guy. Well, you do if you're trying to establish the cookie magic plot. It's a key kind of arc. Is it, though? I just didn't really care. I didn't care either. Did that relationship exist even?

Did cookie date a church-going shoe salesman for a bit? We probably both should have read the Pro-Man book before we did this. I'm happy I didn't. No, I don't want to. I want to watch this series. and I'm enjoying watching the shows multiple times to try and get the flavor for what this drama is that they're showing. It's a standalone drama. It's not the book.

It's not, you know, it's a screenplay. It's inspired by the book. Yeah, and it's not anywhere near, you know, a reflection of what really happened. So let's just enjoy the cartoon. That's my view. So when we did episode one, I'm getting this all mixed up. He plays the one-on-one with Norm Nixon at Donald Sterling. I think that was in episode one.

Yeah, we should have talked about that scene. The two basketball scenes we have with Magic. One, I actually thought he was unrealistically lousy in the Norm Nixon pickup scene. I mean... I know why they had to do it that way. He's wearing clothes. He's wearing the wrong shoes. I get it. That's it. I gave him the benefit of the doubt

because he was wearing slippery shoes. I think he's taking Norm down low. Take him down low for some jump-hers. You want to do a genuine basketball while in the house and stuff. It's just like, I don't think it's that one side. And then this pickup scene

seemed more realistic to me that magic would just clean house with me. I like the scene. I enjoyed watching it. I'm just not positive we needed it. I did enjoy saying magic have sex in a couple of parking lots. So I mean,

the show. I was just picturing during those scenes, I was, because magic's going to say he didn't watch this. Come on. I guarantee that it'll be his take. I didn't watch it. I didn't want to watch it.

it would be too hard for me. I guarantee you he's going to watch this. You don't think he's already watched it? No. Nobody in his life with the screeners. Okay. All right. I guarantee he watches this.

First of all, magic watches everything. That was like one of the things I was shocked by when I hung out of them for a year. He saw every movie. Human Cookie would go to the movies. Remember that? He was a big moviegoer.

He was a huge movie. He would always go to the movies. That's right. He loved the movies. He loved that tradition. He saw everything. There's no way he's not watching this. And the other thing,

definitely pick this up in my ear with him. Not a huge Norm Nixon fan. Never said it, but would always talk about the other guys, but every time with Norm, it's like, oh, yeah, Norm, but you can tell. They create,

they do a whole thing with this dynamic with Norm Nixon. In these first two shows, you know, Norm tells them to go back to school. Norm, you know, is deliberately, you know, mean to him. He's very petty with him.

There was a lot going on there. The book gets into a lot of it. There was definitely a competition for the ladies in the L.A. area. I think both of those guys were a big stickman back in the day. We knew magic was, but Norm was too. Undoubtedly. So you had that. You also had who has the car keys of the team. And not to jump ahead for the listeners, but the 1982 team, the second title team. I thought was the most, when I was doing all my research and watching all the stuff, but I actually thought that was the most underrated of all the teams, like in the top 10.

Interesting. Because at some point, they just, because Westhead eventually gets fired. Sorry, spoiler alert. Riley comes in, spoiler alert. But he just, they get Bob McAdoo and they're just running. And they're basically small ball with Kareem. Yeah. And Magic's playing a lot of like off ball.

And Magic, like, you look at his steals and stuff that. year and they're just like really athletic and him and Nixon become interchangeable and they're awesome but within a year they're getting rid of norm next and they traded for byron scott yeah they get rid of them could partly because they have magic but also i think magic was good with norm nixon sure that makes sense that was it so yeah i'll see as we get later into the show how much they dip into the norm versus magic with the ladies because i by all accounts that was a big thing oh wow okay oh yeah i'm looking forward to it a proman's book went into it a little bit okay great Yeah, no, that was...

I'm excited now. That was... They weren't just wrestling for control of the Lakers' offense. I mean, this is, you know, an old school HBO show in that one certain aspect. Yeah. Just, you know... Listen, this is... These are the Lakers we grew up with and this is the HBO we grew up with.

That's exactly right, brother. We want that fucking S-S-C and the N? N. Giant N. All of it. It's... Well, because it's... really is if you're going to tell the tales of that era,

yet those excesses were part of the tails. It is, we haven't really seen enough drug use, to be honest with you. We have not. Maybe that's coming later, but this is, I mean, we're in the fucking cocaine wheelhouse. Magic is not a drug user, so all of the time. Magic does a drink. He didn't do anything. All of the time we're getting with Magic and his family, by definition, will not include

any drugs or alcohol. so. But Dr. Bust and his girlfriends. It's the late 70s and nobody knows cocaine is like the worst thing you could possibly take at the time. Yes. It's a really fun drug that there is a reference. Yeah.

One of Sterling's girlfriends tells Magic to be sure to have a glass of champagne before he does the Coke because it amplifies the Coke. I mean, if we're born 10 years earlier, we're probably trying cocaine. Oh, sure. Yeah. By the time we got to college, we were terrified of it between LEM bias, who had both of us in a really hard way. And I was like, I'm out. Don't. We, we are, I mean, I'm sure we've talked about it. The cocaine. All the cocaine and sex we missed out on. We missed out on cocaine and sex. We literally did. We loved the late 70s. We lived in, you know, the Puritan era. Just think how much cocaine and sex we could have had. The Red Bus Showdown at the end. A little cartoonish, but I liked it.

Great drama. Good job. I enjoyed it. Both done. You've got to do it. HBO knows how to do stuff with that. New characters in this episode, David Stern, we mentioned Red Arbac, Bill Sherman. We have not met Michael Cooper.

He becomes episode three, I think. He steps in. Do you feel like they botched the Rback character or no? You're okay with that? We're a neutral party. Yeah, and we went through the aspects of that relationship, the way they've portrayed it, that we can't make sense out of. Those are all my complaints. I don't have any problem with the way that Chickless has inhabited this character and given him a larger-than-life persona, a top-of-the-game kind of persona.

And I own you persona that he puts right in Bus's face. You know, I own the Lakers. You know, you're beneath me. you should be groveling, you know, coming to me in this way. So like it fits the cartoon arc and so I'm fine with it. Does this show make you like Jeannie Bus more? What's great is I don't know very much about Jeannie Bus. Like I live in Washington.

I know, you know, the roles that she's played with the organization her whole life. I'm familiar with her relationship with Phil Jackson. But I feel like I'm learning Jeannie Bus. you know, starting at her and her late teens, early 20s in this role. I'm just along for the ride. I'm just, I'm just eager to learn. You can see why she's, I think, kind of a secretly tough lady. Well, she's, she's, this is like we were talking about in my podcast a week ago about,

you know, LeBron and trying to kind of get a foothold against those, those guys. She's not going to get pushed around. She's been through some stuff. She was pushed around by magic either. And magic did this whole thing when he left the team. And they've, they've set her up in a way that I think is effective. She's a sponge. She's like always lurking.

She's always observing. Yeah. She's taking stuff in. She's watching these dynamics. She has certain instincts. She clearly has some good ideas about how to use the forum. She's trying to figure out how do I navigate these, this inside relationship stuff, right? I'm the daughter of the owner.

She knows she's the daughter of the owner. She's willing to, you know, do the grunt work that that's the role that's the role that Rothman has her in, but she also wants to, you know, I think it's pretty smart. So if you could make up anything that could have happened in episode two, what would you have thrown in? Because let's just say we get to make up one thing. Make up one thing. I mean, it would have to do with, you know, music of the time or drugs of the time or sex

of the time, probably all three. Yeah, I just like. The fish that saved Wanda seen is pretty, pretty great. Fish that say Pittsburgh? Pittsburgh. Fish that saves Wanda. I would have just, if I was, if I was one of the EPs of this show, I just would have said, look, every 35 minutes, we need to either be at the Playboy Mansion, the Forum Club,

or whatever LA's equipment. The Forum Club didn't exist then. Whatever, wherever, like, rich people grow up where there were girls. What's the name of the room? They take us into the room with the girls. It bus goes, this is my favorite part. And the girls come out and sit and do the, the, the song, what's it called?

Well, they used Dimitri. He's, see, they do all this very subtle LA stuff that you would never, unless you lived here, like, Dimitri, who's this guy is at the same Sancte Bungle now, is famous, famous matriety for years. Okay.

In L.A. and they use him, and I couldn't tell if it was him or an actor playing him, but he's in there. So they're, they're dipping into this very, very hardcore L.A. stuff. So I'm, I'm interested to see how far they go with that. But I would have thrown in like a Nicholson.

If we're just making stuff up. Okay. Okay. Okay. I like it. With four girls and like a fucking scarface pile of cocaine and maybe like one other act. Like Robin Williams is there. The only- somebody playing rock. Like I feel like we can have celebrity cameos.

Well, the only movie stars that we've seen Diana Ross and we see Bill Cosby. Those are the two celebrities so far. I would have Robin Williams dressed as morque with the Jack Nick. I said like, let's fucking, let's fucking go. We're in a way. Well, I mean, Diane Cannon.

Like, let's go. Okay. Let's do it. I think it comes. It's the come though, right? Maybe it'll come. Maybe it'll come. Have magic.

Just throwing some actions with them. All right. Predictions for episode three. We know we're going to meet Jack McKinney. I'm guessing in episode three, the new Lakers coach, because Wes quits the end of this episode. It's how it ends. We know who's going to replace him as the coach because it's Jack McKinney.

who is Dr. Jack Ramsey's big assistant. So the episode is the arc of West, and it has West, you know, as, you know, this tormented character. Yeah. Who has,

you know, the, the, situation growing up in West Virginia, why he can't be happy and that he self-selects himself out of the job. He's like, I just can't.

Yeah. He's literally like driving himself crazy. And he, apparently realizes it and the episode ends with him saying, I have to, I'm going to, you know, end this. Leading to Jack McKinney in episode three. Yeah, right. Jack McKinney, which this is why I can see how they realized eventually that this was a TV show

because you have all these beats. You have bus by as the Lakers. Who are they going to draft? Magic or Moncrief? Is Norm Nixon going to be ready to give up his spot to magic? Is Kareem going to like magic? How do we make Kareem happy? He's usually miserable.

Is Buss going to have enough money to buy all this stuff? Wait, Jerry West quit? They got to bring in this new coach. Well, we know the coach has a bicycle accident and all of a sudden he's out too. It's amazing. And now this guy Paul Westhead, who we haven't even met yet, is about to be handed the keys to showtime. Those are all factual things that happen. That we know are coming.

And also the Jerry Tarkhanian part. That's the other thing because they chase Jerry Tarkhanian before they end up with Jack McKinney. so we know that's coming too. We know there's a whole Jerry Tarkany in Vegas thing that's about to happen. And then we have the whole arc of the actual season and Spencer Haywood and how are they going to handle that part? And Kareem getting hurt and missing the finals.

And I'm in-house. I'm in. We're all the way in. I can't believe the show worked. I want to be on the poster where it's like, I can't believe the show works. Bill Simmons, the ringer. All of me neither.

Joe House. rigor. All of the dramatic effects are there and I'm on it. I love it. I really love the show. I don't feel like enough. We've been sort of talking through it in a dispassionate way. I fucking love this show. Yeah, we said, that could be my quote. We said A minus after the first episode. I'm, I've moved it up to like, it's borderline A for me. Yeah, I'm, I mean, yeah, I'm all the way in. I can't wait to find out like, will people age 23 watch this show? It's a great question. I have no idea. Right.

Are they going to find it interesting? At all. Is it more interesting to us because we actually know what's going to happen? Or is it more interesting if you know nothing? Because Casey Boy is the guy who runs HBO was like, I'm not a basketball fan. I love this show. Okay. So we'll find out.

All right. This episode was produced by Kyle Creighton. Thanks to Joe House. I hope you're checking out all the Prestige TV content because we are doing a bunch of great stuff on this feed, March, April, May. Check it out. Prestige TV. 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. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless. But so is our gear. Level up your summer at Columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on alolotion. You're welcome. Columbia.

Engineered for whatever. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their crumudgeonly, Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Remarkably bright creatures is now playing.

Only on Netflix.