Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty - General Discussion

[Athena5217]

I hope the part was made up where Magic asked his girlfriend’s father to break up with her for him. That’s even worse than breaking up via text message.

I hope Paul Westhead quoting Shakespeare to the press was true. That was hilarious and I’m sure the last thing they expected to hear. I know Westhead really did like to quote Shakespeare.

[HC87]

I could be wrong but I think I saw somewhere that the next season of this show will be the Kobe/Shaq era of the Lakers. 

I'd rather see the continuation of these early 80s Lakers...we'll see. 

[cambridgeguy]

7 hours ago, Athena5217 said:

I hope the part was made up where Magic asked his girlfriend’s father to break up with her for him. That’s even worse than breaking up via text message.

Magic (and the rest of the Lakers with the exception of AC Green) cheated on their wives/girlfriends with scores of women.  None of them are shining examples of how to handle a relationship.  I don't think Magic beat Wilt's unofficial 20000 women record, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

 

[Marley]

Pretty sure Magic is still whoring around so I believe most shitty things about him because well he’s a shitty person lol.

It would be kind of stupid if they zoomed way ahead to Shaq and Kobe era in season 2. Maybe if there was a season 3.

[Lady Whistleup]

11 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

Magic (and the rest of the Lakers with the exception of AC Green) cheated on their wives/girlfriends with scores of women.  None of them are shining examples of how to handle a relationship.  I don't think Magic beat Wilt's unofficial 20000 women record, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

 

There was this:

https://www.sportscasting.com/lakers-legend-james-worthy-arrested-for-soliciting-prostitution/

I am shocked that the part about Magic turning down the lucrative Nike deal was true. Wow. He must be kicking himself. 

I kind of wonder if the show will touch the rumors that Magic and Isiah Thomas were, uh, more than friends. 

[Marley]

Damn about the Nike deal. Magic is still rich as hell but crazy about that missed opportunity.

The woman who was with Magic in episode 6 was really annoying. Like chill.

[Athena5217]

If Nike had signed Magic, he would not have made that Converse commercial with Larry Bird that began their friendship. Plus, Nike might not have signed Jordan and we would not have Air Jordans.

[MrWhyt]

20 hours ago, HC87 said:

I could be wrong but I think I saw somewhere that the next season of this show will be the Kobe/Shaq era of the Lakers. 

I'd rather see the continuation of these early 80s Lakers...we'll see. 

it wouldn't make any sense to go to the Kobe/Shaq era, we're just seeing the start of the Laker's first Dynasty, why jump to the next one?

[Popples]

On 4/11/2022 at 6:19 PM, Lady Whistleup said:

I am shocked that the part about Magic turning down the lucrative Nike deal was true. Wow. He must be kicking himself. 

He is.

 

[cambridgeguy]

I mean, sure, losing out on all that cash was tough, but I'd argue The Magic Hour was the biggest mistake of his career.

[Lady Whistleup]

I hope Winning Time goes into a bit of why the NBA was in such a slump before the Magic/Larry era. There was a lot of talk about how the NBA was a "black" sport. I saw some interviews with a mortified Larry Bird where he was asked to comment on being the great white hope.

[Mr. R0b0t]

3 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

I mean, sure, losing out on all that cash was tough, but I'd argue The Magic Hour was the biggest mistake of his career.

Aside from contracting HIV while whoring around?

[DoctorAtomic]

It's kind of ironic. Being a 'brand' wasn't really a thing. The 1979 NBA wasn't a television product. Magic and Bird basically made both viable. They couldn't see that at the time because they were doing it. Magic was only like 20 too. The next person after has the luxury of hindsight. Now any top player, having a shoe deal is part of the brand. There's also the rivalry with Bird that would lean him to Converse. A single brand show deal might not have worked in 1979 anyway. 

Converse is a better shoe anyway. 

The lawyer was getting around to 'branding' without knowing it when he was talking about the decisions Earvin needs to make for 'Magic'. So did Pryor. Actor didn't look like him but the voice inflection was down. 

2 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:

I hope Winning Time goes into a bit of why the NBA was in such a slump before the Magic/Larry era. There was a lot of talk about how the NBA was a "black" sport. 

I thought when Jack did the film study at the hotel before training camp shed some light on that - it was a bad product. Slow. Predictable. Walking it up the court, running the set plays, etc. Maybe it was more regional. Like I said, in the northeast, I seem to remember it being popular enough. It certainly wasn't a national sport like now. So if you weren't in a market, you couldn't really see any games. 

Did Magic go down on women that much? It's an odd dramatic choice otherwise.   

[cambridgeguy]

7 hours ago, Mr. R0b0t said:

Aside from contracting HIV while whoring around?

It leads to an interesting question - if Magic hadn't gotten sick, would this alternate universe version be happier and more successful today versus the reality?  I'm not so sure about that, especially since by all accounts he's healthy.  While we can always wonder how Magic's career would have gone if he had kept playing after 91 it seems unlikely the Lakers would have won any more titles, so while he cost himself some counting stats his legacy as the greatest PG ever was already secure by then and rings are what really count for the all timers.  90s Magic did go through a period as the old guy who was still trying to hang around, but he got over it.   Now he's an incredibly successful businessman and is so beloved by most Lakers fans he can get away with some truly baffling stuff.

 

 

[Lady Whistleup]

Magic was lucky to have a strong constitution as well as access to the best health care. 

I hope Winning Time goes into how the Lakers fired Paul Westhead after Magic demanded to be traded. Apparently, Magic and Kareem were chilly for a long time because Westhead ran the offense through Kareem and favored a slower, more deliberate pace*.

*Back then, a slow pace was favored. Remember Dean Smith's Four Corners offense where the team just stood around for as long as possible without shooting to delay the game?

[ChicksDigScars]

On 3/28/2022 at 11:31 PM, StatMom said:

While I get that actors will never look exactly like the real life person, the casting of Brody as Riley is ridiculously and distractingly bad, looks wise. It takes me right out of any scene he’s in. The awful fake mustache doesn’t help either. 

Yeah, this is my big problem. How does someone as quirky looking as Adrien Brody, get cast as slick, GQ coverboy Pat Reilly? I find the ridiculousness of it distracting. 

McKinney's bicycle accident gave me the whillies to watch. Holy road rash, Batman. 

Edited April 13, 2022 by ChicksDigScars

[MerBearStare]

4 hours ago, ChicksDigScars said:

Yeah, this is my big problem. How does someone as quirky looking as Adrien Brody, get cast as slick, GQ coverboy Pat Reilly? I find the ridiculousness of it distracting. 

What's ironic is that Will Ferrell's falling out with Adam McKay had to do with him casting John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss because he thought Will Ferrell didn't look enough like Jerry Buss (and because Adam didn't bother to tell Will about it, John had to do that). I didn't even know who Jerry Buss was before this show (I'm not a big sports person), but even I know what Pat Riley looks like. It's also distracting because Adrien Brody is a good ten years older than Pat Riley would have been in 1980.

6 hours ago, Lady Whistleup said:

I hope Winning Time goes into how the Lakers fired Paul Westhead after Magic demanded to be traded. Apparently, Magic and Kareem were chilly for a long time because Westhead ran the offense through Kareem and favored a slower, more deliberate pace*.

*Back then, a slow pace was favored. Remember Dean Smith's Four Corners offense where the team just stood around for as long as possible without shooting to delay the game?

God that sounds so painfully boring. Like I said, I'm not a big sports person, but if I had to pick a sport it would be basketball because it's continuous action and doesn't have all the starting and stopping of football or baseball. That slow pace sounds even more boring than football or baseball (YMMV on that, obviously).

Edited April 13, 2022 by MerBearStare

[Popples]

1 hour ago, ChicksDigScars said:

Yeah, this is my big problem. How does someone as quirky looking as Adrien Brody, get cast as slick, GQ coverboy Pat Reilly? I find the ridiculousness of it distracting.

I felt the same at first, then I found out at this point in time, he wasn't "Slicked-Back Pat" yet. However, if Brody plays future Reilly, it's not going to work as well.

 

[DoctorAtomic]

I'm surprised Westhead goes back to the slower offense. By all accounts, the Showtime offense was successful. I mean, we know it is, but the 'show-present' has shown that it was incredibly successful. Giving that they're showing how much of a mentor McKinney was to Westhead, it's odd he'd change the offense. 

[cambridgeguy]

3 hours ago, MerBearStare said:

God that sounds so painfully boring. Like I said, I'm not a big sports person, but if I had to pick a sport it would be basketball because it's continuous action and doesn't have all the starting and stopping of football or baseball. That slow pace sounds even more boring that football or baseball (YMMV on that, obviously).

Supposedly Jerry Buss agreed.  If you believe his side, he was already planning to fire Westhead for that exact reason and it was just unfortunate timing that it coincided with Magic's big blowup.  Then there was the bizarre press conference where he basically tried to make Riley and West co-coaches only for West to say nope, I'm just an assistant.  There's no way they skip it.  Just like how, if they make it that far, they wouldn't skip Riley's last season when he had become a tyrant and the players were ready to kill him.

[Athena5217]

9 hours ago, Popples said:

I felt the same at first, then I found out at this point in time, he wasn't "Slicked-Back Pat" yet. However, if Brody plays future Reilly, it's not going to work as well.

 

The hair and mustache do a good job of covering up facial differences.

I thought none of the actors looked like the players and the I looked at old pictures and realized how different the players looked earlier in their careers. I did not start watching  until the late 80s so I have very different mental images of Magic and Kareem.

 

[Lady Whistleup]

20 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I'm surprised Westhead goes back to the slower offense. By all accounts, the Showtime offense was successful. I mean, we know it is, but the 'show-present' has shown that it was incredibly successful. Giving that they're showing how much of a mentor McKinney was to Westhead, it's odd he'd change the offense. 

According to an ESPN documentary on the Lakers, Kareem favored a slower offense. Kareem was already pushing 35 by then and he was close to Paul Westhead. He was having trouble with the super-fast offense that Magic liked. Longevity back then wasn't really a thing in basketball. Bill Russell, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, all were retired by 35. Injuries piled up and this was before there was much sports medicine. 

Kareem still says Westhead was his favorite coach:

https://lakersnation.com/kareem-abdul-jabbar-calls-james-worthy-favorite-teammate-paul-westhead-favorite-coach/2017/01/16/

Quote

Paul Westhead was my favourite coach because he taught Shakespeare and I was an enthusiastic fan of Shakespeare. We would sometimes discuss Bard’s plays and I benefited from his extensive knowledge. He also amused us by comparing the team to characters in Shakespeare’s plays. He compared me to Othello because I was an effective leader but misunderstood by others. He thought Magic was like Falstaff because he enjoyed life with such gusto.

 

[DoctorAtomic]

1 hour ago, Lady Whistleup said:

According to an ESPN documentary on the Lakers, Kareem favored a slower offense.

That's coming across in the show too. It's still an era when teams wanted a big center posting up all the time. 

[Lady Whistleup]

14 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

That's coming across in the show too. It's still an era when teams wanted a big center posting up all the time. 

I actually hope the show goes into some of the tensions between Kareem and Magic. I remember reading an interview where Kareem said he resented Magic for being the young superstar. Kareem came from an era when the biggest basketball stars were still barred from restaurants and called racial slurs. I remember reading Elgin Baylor saying in the off-season he worked at Nordstrom's stocking shirts. He wasn't a benchwarmer. He was a big star. So the old guard resented the Magic/Jordan era when black stars started to get huge endorsements and shoe contracts.

They eventually became friends but it took a long time.

[DoctorAtomic]

When they got into the fight in the locker room, Kareem was saying that to Magic about having a platform, and showing respect. The show didn't got into it a little in the Kareem episode, but the documentary I watched highlighted how much of a controversy it was when he changed his name. It wasn't even 10 years since he changed his name publicly when the show started so it's not like it's faded from people's minds. Plenty of fans would have still seen him with the Bucks as Alcindor. 

[cambridgeguy]

I'd expect the show to play up (or just plain invent) Kareem's bitterness in the finals.  He was awesome, but since Magic had that incredible game 6 he's the one who gets all the credit.

Speaking of the 1980 finals, here's the actual trophy presentation.  I really hope they do this and come up with a reason for Magic not being there. It would be unfathomable for the star player to be MIA nowadays.

 

[Lady Whistleup]

Back then the Finals weren't even on live tv. They were tape-delayed.

[DoctorAtomic]

On 4/12/2022 at 8:09 PM, Lady Whistleup said:

I hope Winning Time goes into a bit of why the NBA was in such a slump before the Magic/Larry era. There was a lot of talk about how the NBA was a "black" sport. I saw some interviews with a mortified Larry Bird where he was asked to comment on being the great white hope.

There's a documentary on HBO called "Magic and Bird" or something, and they're actually getting into this issue. They're saying it's partly due to the changing game because of the merger with the ABA, and basically the Wilt/Russell era ending causing the slump. There were more 'personalities' in the game, which is kind of funny because it's always been like that for me. I think Dr J was the first 'name' player I remember. It's also a good companion documentary to this show like the Kareem one I watched. 

It's really an interesting time because the modern game really evolved from this 1979-84 period. 

Edited April 16, 2022 by DoctorAtomic

[Lady Whistleup]

8 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

There's a documentary on HBO called "Magic and Bird" or something, and they're actually getting into this issue. They're saying it's partly due to the changing game because of the merger with the ABA, and basically the Wilt/Russell era ending causing the slump. There were more 'personalities' in the game, which is kind of funny because it's always been like that for me. I think Dr J was the first 'name' player I remember. It's also a good companion documentary to this show like the Kareem one I watched. 

It's really an interesting time because the modern game really evolved from this 1979-84 period. 

The three point line wasn't even a thing until 1979. 

One thing I'm liking about Quincy Isaiah's Magic is that IMO he really captures the slickness that was Magic, and shows how that slickness can rub people the wrong way.

[DoctorAtomic]

I didn't realize how legitimately epic those Lakers-Celtics Finals were. I watched them, but I was way too young to grasp everything that was going on. The actor playing Bird better bring it. Real life Bird was ruthless. 

[DoctorAtomic]

I'm still not clear why the Lakers would be struggling with Westhead. He knows the showtime offense. I suppose he's making the point that he needs an assistant there. Maybe there's the end of game decision making because he's still new, but I would think he's looking at the same film. I guess because they only saw him as a substitute coach. I could see them struggling to win, but not losing to bad teams. 

The scene with Kareem and Magic's dad was really well done. Maybe because they were closer in age.  

It's amazing that the LAKERS are staying in a HoJos on the road. I liked how Kareem just shut down the press at the airport. 

I'm highly doubtful there was a press conference before the Celtics game with Bird and Magic. Though there's no doubt Bird would have detested it. The voice for Johnny Most wasn't quite landing. They nailed the Boston fans for sure. I thought they even could have dialed it up even more. 

The actor playing Bird got his shot right too. I know Bird was a famous trash talker, but I think they made him a little too broody or pissy, really. He was aloof but not sour.

I liked the point West made about Boston getting to him first and why winning there was so important down the road. You beat them. You know they're not indestructible. 

I don't know if this game actually existed because I thought the first pro meeting for Bird and Magic was at the Forum. 

Edited April 18, 2022 by DoctorAtomic

[Lady Whistleup]

Here's a good fact checking article for episode 7:

https://www.whattowatch.com/features/fact-vs-fiction-winning-time-season-1-episode-7-did-larry-bird-trash-talk-players

I liked this episode. The Magic/Bird rivalry was legendary, and they got the acting for Larry Bird pretty down pat.

Still not feeling Brody as Pat Riley. Brody is too neurotic. I associate Pat Riley as being rather cool and collected.

[MerBearStare]

This is maybe a dumb question, but if there's an NBA game where the referees are clearly favoring one team over the other, is there like an opportunity to appeal after the game? Or at least file an official complaint? If the last shot hadn't gone in and the Lakers had lost by one point, I think an argument could have been made that they would have had more points had the referees called proper fouls and they had gotten some free throw opportunities. Though I suppose if the refs hadn't been so awful and the fans hadn't been such dicks, then the team - and Paul - wouldn't have gotten as fired up and wouldn't have done so well that late in the game, so the Boston folks ended up biting themselves in the ass.

[Lady Whistleup]

4 minutes ago, MerBearStare said:

This is maybe a dumb question, but if there's an NBA game where the referees are clearly favoring one team over the other, is there like an opportunity to appeal after the game? Or at least file an official complaint? If the last shot hadn't gone in and the Lakers had lost by one point, I think an argument could have been made that they would have had more points had the referees called proper fouls and they had gotten some free throw opportunities. Though I suppose if the refs hadn't been so awful and the fans hadn't been such dicks, then the team - and Paul - wouldn't have gotten as fired up and wouldn't have done so well that late in the game, so the Boston folks ended up biting themselves in the ass.

There isn't. There is the coach's challenge and review nowadays for individual plays. But back then there wasn't. And rumors of refs betting on games and manipulating point spreads has been around forever. There's also a lot of rumors of point shaving among players. I always side-eye how some 80% and above players will miss free throws late in the game.

One ref got a lifetime ban for betting on games:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NBA_betting_scandal

[ninjago]

Spencer Haywood was married to Iman?! The man who did his own circumcision was married to Iman!

[DoctorAtomic]

Don't forget at the time Boston was almost in a league of its own. Home teams in general get calls, but they were trying to point out on the show the imbalance between the two teams were. irl the calls were not that egregious. 

Historically though, winning in the Garden was extremely difficult. I don't think Boston lost more than 5 games a season during their championship runs. 

I think that's the point West was making dramatically. The Lakers really needed to get that first win over them now so they could be the Lakers later. 

That still happened, just not at the Garden for the first meeting iirc. 

 

[DoctorAtomic]

12 hours ago, Lady Whistleup said:

Here's a good fact checking article for episode 7:

https://www.whattowatch.com/features/fact-vs-fiction-winning-time-season-1-episode-7-did-larry-bird-trash-talk-players

I liked this episode. The Magic/Bird rivalry was legendary, and they got the acting for Larry Bird pretty down pat.

Still not feeling Brody as Pat Riley. Brody is too neurotic. I associate Pat Riley as being rather cool and collected.

Bird trash talking on the court is documented from tons of players. Especially about what shot he was going to take. 

I was right though - Lakers and Celtics first played in the Forum and weren't losing to scrub teams. 
Still a good episode on the birth of the Lakers.

[Lady Whistleup]

I'm so glad they showed Rick Barry's underhand free throws. I wonder why players haven't tried to replicate it.

[Racj82]

This did a good job showing why I think fandom is dumb. Whether it be sports, star wars, marvel, whatever. Everyone does not become a fanatic but watching people carry on the way they do is just laughable to me. Not to mention having vendettas against people, movies, towns, studios, etc because they are on the other side of the precious stuff you love. It's all so silly to me. Minus making bets these things garner you no money. They don't really care about you except for your money. None of this matters. 

[Marley]

Was Larry Bird really like that?

I don’t know much about him other then the basics but he came off really abrasive lol.

[cambridgeguy]

13 hours ago, Lady Whistleup said:

I'm so glad they showed Rick Barry's underhand free throws. I wonder why players haven't tried to replicate it.

For the obvious reason - they'd get made fun of.  Yes, winning is more important, scoring counts more than image, blah blah, but that's the way it is.  Wilt Chamberlain actually did it for one season and had the highest FT percentage of his career but stopped and went right back to bricking them because he felt silly doing it.  Image mattered (and still matters) to these guys.  

[Lady Whistleup]

9 hours ago, Marley said:

Was Larry Bird really like that?

I don’t know much about him other then the basics but he came off really abrasive lol.

Yes apparently he was a huge trash talker and not exactly a warm and cuddly person.

In fairness to Bird though, he probably had a chip on his shoulder because there was a lot of resentment towards him being the "great white hope." Dennis Rodman and Isiah Thomas actually said that he was getting the attention because he was white:

So I get it that Larry wasn't all that friendly to other players. 

[Lady Whistleup]

Kareem has written a long, thoughtful article about Winning Time:

https://kareem.substack.com/p/winning-time-isnt-just-deliberately?s=r

Quote

 

There is only one immutable sin in writing: Don’t Be Boring! Winning Time commits that sin over and over.

I’ll start with the bland characterization. The characters are crude stick-figure representations that resemble real people the way Lego Hans Solo resembles Harrison Ford. Each character is reduced to a single bold trait as if the writers were afraid anything more complex would tax the viewers’ comprehension. Jerry Buss is Egomaniac Entrepreneur, Jerry West is Crazed Coach, Magic Johnson is Sexual Simpleton, I’m Pompous Prick. They are caricatures, not characters. Amusement park portraits that emphasize one physical feature to amplify your appearance—but never touching the essence.

The result of using caricatures instead of fully developed characters is that the plot becomes frenetic melodrama, sensationalized invented moments to excite the senses but reveal nothing deeper. It’s as if he strung together a bunch of flashing colored lights and told us, “This is the spirit of Christmas.”

How was the plot constructed? If you gathered the biggest gossip-mongers from the Real Housewives franchise and they collected all the rumors they heard about each other from Twitter and then played Telephone with each other you’d have the stitched together Frankenstein’s monster that is this show. I was shocked that for all the talent and budget, the result was so lacking in substance and humor.

 

Kareem is a good writer. I enjoy Winning Time but I appreciate his critique.

[cardigirl]

I've been enjoying this show and was waiting to see them play in Boston, but wow, someone is NOT a Celtics fan. 🤣 Maybe the old Boston Garden was rat-infested, that was before I moved here so I can't refute that.   

Nor did I think Larry Bird was as obnoxious as portrayed.  He was competitive, but I think they laid the "hick from French Lick" on a bit thick. 

[DoctorAtomic]

21 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

Maybe the old Boston Garden was rat-infested, that was before I moved here so I can't refute that.   

From what I remember the Garden was a hole, and the visitors locker room was like a walk in closet. 

1 hour ago, Lady Whistleup said:

Yes apparently he was a huge trash talker and not exactly a warm and cuddly person.

In fairness to Bird though, he probably had a chip on his shoulder because there was a lot of resentment towards him being the "great white hope." Dennis Rodman and Isiah Thomas actually said that he was getting the attention because he was white:

I'd really recommend the Magic-Bird documentary to get some real isight. Bird actually said he didn't care what they said about him. The NBA made him have a press conference and he was more mad at that. Thomas is also a documented bitch, and the so-called 'Bad Boys' couldn't beat the Celtics until they basically aged out, and Bird had no spine left, literally. 

He trash talked a ton, and there's hours of youtube of players with their own anecdotes. It's not that he trash talked - he was so good at it that they couldn't help to laugh. In the show, the 'I'm going to spin around you guys and hit a 12 footer' is something he'd do. The press conference; there's no way he'd even speak to Magic. 

21 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

Nor did I think Larry Bird was as obnoxious as portrayed.  He was competitive, but I think they laid the "hick from French Lick" on a bit thick. 

There's footage out there of him talking to the press after the games, and he'll say when someone played well or if he didn't. Typical, professional behavior. But he said himself when he beat people that he hoped they were suffering from losing to him. Both Magic and Bird said that they didn't hate each other, but game recognize game, and they were in each other's way to getting a championship. It's not like Bird didn't shake hands after a game or yell at the press.

I don't remember if they showed this on the show, but Bird and Magic were on some USA basketball team together in 78 or something. There's some footage in the documentary, and it was patently disgusting when they were on the court together. 

It's kind of funny because no one is going to begrudge Jordan for what he accomplished, but who was his main rival? Malone? Miller? Ewing? None of those guys are in his class. 

Even though the Lakers-Celtics only played in the Finals and twice each season, Bird and Magic are saying they check the paper to see what the other one did in the last game. 

Edited April 19, 2022 by DoctorAtomic

[Lady Whistleup]

4 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I'd really recommend the Magic-Bird documentary to get some real isight. Bird actually said he didn't care what they said about him. The NBA made him have a press conference and he was more mad at that. Thomas is also a documented bitch, and the so-called 'Bad Boys' couldn't beat the Celtics until they basically aged out, and Bird had no spine left, literally. 

I think I remember an interview where Bird said his mother wasn't offended by Isiah, so he wasn't either.

As for Jordan's main rival, I think in the 80s and early 90s at least it was the Pistons and Isiah Thomas. The fact that these two people actually disliked each other off the court added to the rivalry.

[DoctorAtomic]

No one liked Thomas. That's why he wasn't on the Dream Team. I wouldn't even say the Pistons was much of a rivalry because once Jordan beat them, that was it. 

In the documentary, they show the press conference with Bird and Thomas. Thomas did apologize. I don't think he cared because Thomas just wasn't ever nearly at a Magic level of player. 

[cambridgeguy]

On 4/18/2022 at 11:32 AM, DoctorAtomic said:

I was right though - Lakers and Celtics first played in the Forum and weren't losing to scrub teams. 
Still a good episode on the birth of the Lakers.

Given the creative liberties they took with the circumstances surrounding this game I wonder what they'll do with the Finals.  In real life the Lakers were up 3-2 and while Magic's game 6 in Philly was incredible they did have the fallback of a game 7 in LA.  It would certainly be more dramatic if they tweaked that into a game 7, on the road, with their best player sitting at home.

[Unclejosh]

Bird was who Magic compared himself to and vice versa.  For all of Bird's well documented surliness both on and off the court, if you were his friend, you had that friendship for life. I hope when they get to it they show them becoming friends during the converse commercial as well as Larry being the first player to call him after hearing about his diagnosis and how they were both basically in tears talking about it.  Most of Magic's teammates wouldn't even talk to him after.  

Even though Bird played another year after Magic retired, he admitted he lost his desire to compete at the same level as before.  As was stated above, they used to check the box scores every night after the other played. Once Magic retired, Bird stopped checking. He just didn't care about it anymore.

 

[DoctorAtomic]

3 hours ago, Unclejosh said:

Even though Bird played another year after Magic retired, he admitted he lost his desire to compete at the same level as before.

Bird goes on a surprisingly emotional monologue about this (for him) in the documentary on the tail of talking about calling Magic about the HIV diagnosis. We know from the first scene of the show that it started with the HIV reveal, so hopefully it continues and we'll see that. 

3 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

Given the creative liberties they took with the circumstances surrounding this game I wonder what they'll do with the Finals.

I think the Finals are more ingrained in sports lore than a regular season game that they don't need to tinker with it. The Lakers did win in Boston during that season in 1980, but Magic didn't play in that game, and it ended rather anticlimactic with Norm hitting free throws. (I had to look that up). When Boston came to LA first in 1979 they got blown out (also had to look it up; it was in the documentary too). Dramatic license here I can see. I mean, this is fundamentally a dramatic interpretation of the 'rise' of the Lakers with them being underdogs. They just kept losing to Boston in the Finals so it's not like they weren't an elite franchise. 

Far be it for me to argue with Kareem analyzing someone playing him, but I don't find the actor 'pompous'. The scene with Kareem and Earvin, Sr., last episode was probably the best scene of the series for me. 

I'm sure if someone was playing me in the remarkable story of my life, they'd probably overdo it on me being sour, when in fact I'm actually trash talking, just really dry. It's not my fault no one is bringing their dancing shoes. 

Edited April 20, 2022 by DoctorAtomic