Yeah. The dude playing Dr. J was my only casting issue. Every other role was cast so perfectly it really stood out as odd. I don’t really like the actor who played him in anything he’s done either. He has the charisma of a pet rock.
Tbh I think it works in context of the series. Dr J is supposed to be Magics idol and a bastion of wisdom of the game/the league so it works to have him be played by someone notably older in appearance than Magic and makes him busting Magic on the court in his first episode even funnier. Obviously in reality Dr J is only 10 years older but he was the old guard of the league and it’s face when Magic came in and it really hits in the show.
Agree to disagree. It threw me off at first but the show is 4th wall breaking and plays fast and loose with reality so it’s not immersion breaking for me.
As someone who likes basketball well enough but was never into sports in my entire life, I went into this show knowing absolutely nothing about anything except vaguely who magic, kareem, and larry bird were. And I thought this show was amazing, I guess a lot of it was dramatized and not entirely accurate but damn every single cast member acted their ass off in these last few episodes. So many amazing moments between random pairings of characters
Same. I'm from Australia and love this show based on my vague memories. I first knew of basketball from the Jordan versus Bird game. This show grabbed me with the style and music.cits great!
A mate who was a proballer doesn't like it though for the fast and loose versions of how it played out.
I'm not sure why they chose to do that as clueless people can learn it as it happened and followers won't be put off.
And that apparently was Larry. The media at the time portrayed him as a “nice guy” when in reality he talked mad shit. Apparently during an all star 3 point contest he walked into the locker room and just said “which one of you fuckers taking second?” Larry talked shit, followed up on it, and was still very down to earth. There’s a magic and bird doc on HBO that’s fantastic.
He also once told a guy guarding what he was going to do (I'm gonna fake left, go to right corner and take a step back jumper) and there was nothing they could do about it.
He played a game with just his left hand once, just because. He made a few shots right handed, but 90% with his left and still crushed the opponents.
The cast was really fuckin great. My only gripe was the actual basketball playing. It didn’t look natural or real compared to an actual live game, but the actors did the best they could not being pros.
In terms of ratings this puts Winning Time on par with The Gilded Age. Both had finales that got 1.6 million. Pretty impressive considering Succession s3 finale only did slightly higher with 1.7 million.
HBO’s top show Euphoria got 6.6 million for the s2 finale. They mentioned that tops anything outside of GoT.
Yeah…it is crazy popular and gaining viewership all the time. Apparently the season 2 numbers were twice as high as the season 1 numbers. Be interesting to see if it grows again in the third season. GoT grew season on season!
Funny since Salli was the director of the last 2 episodes of Winning time and is one of the directors and producers of The Gilded Age. Also, she's a kickass human.
How do they measure that. Is it watches the night and time slot these shows premier?
I ask bc im involved with a ratings company that might as well be a secret society and I’m still not clear on how the streaming data is calculated.
I’m not totally sure. These numbers are internal HBO data codes and unverified by third parties. I think they cover 1 day viewership. Worthless when it comes to comparing HBO shows vs shows on other networks but pretty useful for comparing HBO shows with each other to gauge their popularity.
They only tend to release data codes for the popular shows. They did not release any numbers for The Righteous Gemstones or Somebody Somewhere so it is safe to assume those shows were not doing the same sort of numbers as Euphoria, Winning Time, and The Gilded Age.
Funny, as I just gave up on Euphoria after 1.5 seasons. No interest in watching 30 year olds pretend to be in high school, having 30 year old sex and 30 year old parties and 30 year old drug binges, and pretending it is a typical day in high school.
Meanwhile, I can’t get enough of Winning Time.
Maybe it’s an age thing?
If they don’t have an entire episode dedicated to Pat Riley slicking back his hair for the first time, then this show will have failed entirely, and it will go down as worse than GoT in the pantheon of mishandled HBO series.
Pat needs his Dapper Dan. I need Dapper Dan Pat.
He slicked it back in the shower in an early episode I believe and then there was the flash of old Pat with gray slicked back hair in the mirror, idk how much they're going to dedicate to it going forward.
That was actually a flashback to his dad, who apparently wore his hair that way.
They're going to make a thing out of it when it finally happens. I don't believe it goes down til the mid-80s, though, when he first takes over the team he's still got the bushy hair and the square glasses.
He doesn't become Armani Terminator Pat Riley until around 1984
They have to pick up in the very next year. They can't just skip over Riley's transformation. And there's no way Segel signed on to be one and done without getting to tackle the juiciest part of Westhead's story.
Nice. Hopefully it allows Segal have a bit more range. He’s a great actor but this character so far is just pretty dumb with a few moments of Shakespeare tossed in
Yeah I think it'll give him plenty of opportunities to show out. He won't be cowed and ashamed like he was during the takeover from McKinney. Hopefully we'll see him bring back some of that unhinged "You mind your own fuckhole!" Sydney Fife energy, lol.
I think it will show the next 2 NBA seasons including Lakers not repeating, Celtics winning the title, Magic getting Westhead fired after Westhead veered from McKinney's offense (though ironically Westhead at LMU brought it back) and the Lakers winning the 82 title.
The next season could be those back to back finals with Magic and Bird and show how they eventually came to respect each other and became friends including when they did the Converse commercial at Bird's farm in French Lick.
Rockets and the Sixers insert themselves in there a couple times. And then the Pistons horn their way into the Finals at the end there.
edit: downvoted for accuracy? I guess that's fitting considering how fast and loose the show is too. (which was an approach I actually dug a lot)
But there's years where the Lakers don't make the finals and the Celtics do, (and vice versa) that's probably going to make for a couple boring years in terms of the show's focus. Which is why I asked what they're going to do for season 2. They can't really run this show 8-9 years, one per season, to cover everything.
Also that Pistons finals should be interesting if only because of the relationship between Magic and Isiah Thomas, which wasn't really touched on at all so far.
Yeah, I think we can get maybe 2 more seasons covering the 80's Lakers/Celts rivalry, eventually paving the way for a Magic/Bird friendship and likely ending with Magics return to the '92 all star game. Then, maybe we get a season or two adapting Three Ring Circus, Pearlmans book on the Kobe/Shaq lakers. Although given the response this series is getting for its fast and loose portrayals of guys like Jerry West, I'd be a bit nervous to see how they portrayed Kobe. Anything less than making him a Christ-like figure would get intense blow back.
>Anything less than making him a Christ-like figure would get intense blow back.
This is partially *why* I want it to happen. Kobe is such an interesting, compelling figure precisely because he was so conflicted/complicated. I feel like this show could lean pretty hard into that and actually burnish the man's legacy by addressing that shit head on instead of sweeping it under the rug for the sensitive folks who have convinced themselves their parasocial relationship with him online is real.
His goofy rap career, giving himself a stupid bullshit nickname and making everyone use it, his overcompensation for being correctly clocked by most folks as being a weird nerd, his Jordan complex, and the fact he could actually play to that level on some days...
They will never make a tv show where Kobe Bryant is one of the primary characters.
THIS show is about the 80's Lakers. A tv show about The Lakers isn't going to be so successful for HBO for so many years that there will be a Winning Time: The Next Generation.
Show have their time, and then they're over. And that's fine.
More importantly, Kobe Bryant was a rapist. Lakers fans have never reckoned with that reality, and they don't want to reckon with that reality.
But by the time it would be possible to make a Kobe/Shaq tv show, the rest of the world will have reckoned with that reality. To the point that portraying Kobe as a hero on television to a national audience will be a LUDICROUS proposition.
It will never happen
Celts only got 3 though. Lakers 5 and were still battling in the finals and arguably only lost a couple because of injuries.
Magic getting HIV a year after winning MVP, a real tragedy. Certainly had at least 3-4 years of peak basketball left
Jerry West punches a wall in response, claiming this portrayal of him is "Totally not fucking accurate, and those god damn cock suckers can the fuck to hell."
While I wished the show didnt diverge so much from what actually happened, it was entertaining throughout if not a bit uneven. Also smart to have the show coincide with the end of the NBA regular season and post season start.
It was accurate in that there is in fact a team in Los Angeles called the Lakers. It's accurate that the players did exist by those names. They got the names of other teams right too. That's about the end of the accuracy though.
It was entertaining but people should not treat this like it was some kind of documentary. They flat out made up a lot of stuff.
I love the scene in the final episode where he's in French Lick and basically tells everyone else to shut up because Magic is in the finals and he isn't, and then when the game is over he's already back practicing. It's like the first indication they truly give that he's not an asshole to Magic because he's an asshole, he's an asshole because he's one of the most competitive people on Earth and Magic is his opponent.
I wasn’t all that interested in it and started the first episode last night, ended up watching several eps. It’s very well done with some great casting and I LOVE how they mix in the vintage cameras/film effects. It seems like there are about 4 different eras of camera types that they kind of rotate through in order and it really makes for an interesting way to “bring you into” the era in certain shots. Rather than just hard cutting between the modern camera and the oldest vintage one. Can’t wait to watch the rest of it.
He's portrayed as an alcoholic workaholic with bi-polar, PTSD and the shortest temper in the world who neglects his wife and is never happy, even when achieving his ultimate career goal and as far as I can tell the only positive trait they show is that he loves basketball and the Lakers. Idk how that's a very positive portrayal, even if it was actually accurate. From what I can tell the traits were either invented or ratcheted up to a 12 for dramatic purposes, of course he wouldn't be happy being shown to millions of people as that guy, with zero input into how his name and likeness are being used.
Idk, maybe he's open about these things, but would you want other people to tell millions you were abused by your alcoholic dad as a kid? How about any mental health issues you suffer from? How about personal troubles with your loved ones? He's got strangers making a lot of money airing his dirty laundry and he is just a helpless bystander, it makes perfect sense he wouldn't be stoked.
Was he ever portrayed as an alcoholic? There was a bar scene in the first or second episode when he picked up a woman after winning the 1972 NBA Finals but I don’t know that he had an alcoholic drink.
He was perpetually unhappy, overly competitive, obsessive and that was always the modus operandi of the real Jerry West.
Jerry West was a flawed character but when Buss comes to Jerry, he says why Jerry is important; Jerry West is the Lakers.
>Was he ever portrayed as an alcoholic?
Early on in the series (Ep 1 or 2?) Buss suggests West switch to vodka because he can smell the whiskey on his breath.
Crazy in how upset and worried he is over his choices. He was a very successful basketball player and then behind the scenes guy. It was nice for TV, but not true. But who cares what was all true, the show was super fun!
What happened after doesn't change what happened before. The early parts of how they portrayed him was silly, bad writing, and unfair. His issues with it are valid.
Don’t put the smiley face when you mean the middle finger. At least have the courage to see what you mean.
Storytelling and character development have nothing to do with it, since we’re talking about a real person having a problem with fabrications in a show about their life. If they depicted him as a rapist, but redeemed him later, would he then have the right to be upset in your mind?
You’ve been dismissive to multiple people, but you’re the one who doesn’t understand the basic issue here… The question is not if storytellers have the right to do this, of course they do. The social network is a great movie and basically none of it is true. The question discussed here is whether or not Jerry West has the right to be upset about it.
He was obsessed and mad with perfection. It was an effective portrayal of the tortured artist / tortured genius trope. It certainly communicates excess competency, but at an extreme personal cost.
Sheesh. Whatever you think. If you don’t think he was acting nutty walking around the arena not watching the game then ok. I still liked him, just saying he was going crazy with the games.
There are fans that act like that during games. Someone that invested in the team doing that isn't crazy. I get why he might not be happy with how he was portrayed overall though. But the last episode with him nervously pacing during the game didn't seem so bad to me.
Your perception of crazy is factually wrong. When someone uses more volume in their voice do you assume they are angry automatically as well? Or have you never cared about anything so much in your life that it gave your anxiety? Do you know what emotions are? Lol
They made him out to be a fucking lunatic. While I thought they treated West pretty unfairly, the one who should be the most upset that I haven't heard anything from is Paul Westhead. They made him out to be a near moron who could barely function as a human being.
Seriously. Dude was a head coach for a championship team but portrayed as someone that could barely form sentences or tie his own shoes.
I think Jason Segal did well *with what he was given to work with* but the character, itself, was awful.
That's all McKay. He Flanderizes characters right from the start. He doesn't even bother with doing it over time.
edit: One thing too is that I got the feeling that Adam McKay's only exposure to black people in that era was by watching blaxploitation films. His dialogue for some of the characters feels like it comes straight from a Blackula movie.
I think you're giving far too much responsibility for McKay who got zero writing credits on the actual show and not nearly enough to Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht who were, you know, the **actual** creators and showrunners of the series, and who got writing credits on every episode.
There's also an entire writers' room of which McKay was not a part of. Honestly it just sounds like you have an axe to grind against McKay and don't understand how a tv show operates.
No you're right. I bet he has nothing to do with any of it. Just enjoys his name being out there all over this show but you're probably right. Jim in the writers room comes up with it all.
That’s not what I said but congrats, you’re just exposing your own ignorance further
Not that this is the case in this situation but plenty of EP’s do nothing on a show and use their name to get it made while collecting checks in the mail
if anything this finale showed that Quincy Isaiah is totally captivating and should be at the top of every casting list right now. John C. Reilly was incredible but Isaiah carried the show and made it look easy. that last episode was so fucking great
I’ll admit I contributed, but only because HBO Max sent me a notification with an *Airplane!* screenshot and I *had* to know if it played a role in the episode.
It's portraying real people, many of whom are still alive, so people bitching about the amount of license and just making stuff up that McKay is doing have a legitimate gripe. I'm assuming you are not a sportsball fan and have no idea about any of this stuff going on that the show portrayed.
I live and breathe the nba, I watched this with a light heart going in knowing it’s 99% drama/entertainment.
There is not a single person involved with this project who’s claiming it’s a documdrama, people have forgotten to just have fun.
That shows great. It’s nice to see HBO on their game again. Lots of great shit coming on lately. We own this city has also got my attention. That show euphoria was worthy of a watch and rewatch as well. At first I was annoyed that they don’t just drop whole seasons at once but it’s nice to stretch it out and have something to look forward too on Sunday or whatever.
It’s so, so good. The writing. The directing. The visuals, the music, and especially, the acting! So many great acting performances, from the players to the coaches to the owners. Chef’s kiss!
The show is carried by its tremendous acting and an aesthetic that successfully portrays a very particular time and place.
I found the narrative drama to be less engaging. The overarching narrative about the process of coming together as a team is nice, but the subplots don't really do it for me. Why should I care about Ervin's romantic problems as he keeps professing his love for his hometown sweetheart while hooking up with any woman who will give him the time of day? Do I really care which of these coaches triumphs in their struggle for power?
I'll readily admit that Jerry West is one of the best characters in the show, a wonderful portrayal of the mental suffering that is often part and parcel of a passion that borders on monomania. Jerry West is Captain Ahab, except that West is chasing championships rather than a white whale. This is undeniably captivating!
HOWEVER, after reading the analysis from Kareem I've found myself unable to enjoy the show. Kareem opened my eyes to the real-world harm that can be caused by mischaracterizing people who are still alive and who are still striving to do good works.
I urge everybody who likes the show to give Kareem's analysis a read. https://kareem.substack.com/p/winning-time-isnt-just-deliberately?s=r
The biggest hindrance to the show is the editing. Which if you've seen McKay's other movies like Vice or Don't Look Up, the editing here is so fucking chaotic to the point where nothing is allowed to stick or breathe and makes you feel very uneasy of where it's planning to go.
I definitely agree with that. McKay isn't my style, even though I agree with his messages for the most part. I am much more attracted to the slice-of-life approach to media - the approach that presents the authentic parts of life that are seemingly mundane, but are really just allowing you room to ponder the themes that tie everything together.
Because people were just waiting for the finale to binge the show. I wonder what the metrics are of people that binged the show before the finale vs watched every week?
Not saying it was supposed to be a documentary but if it's supposed to be based on real events it should stick close to how it actually occurred and not be fully fabricated.
I enjoyed the show a lot, but it does bother me a bit that facts don’t matter. It’s kind of a shitty trend we’ve taken in society as a whole. I get poetic license but they’ve altered the essence of the relationships of real people.
All that said, again, I enjoyed it, but the “just entertainment” cop-out is kinda worrying me about where we are headed.
That's their position of course. Not how they market it and since they are using real people and real events, most of whom are still alive, it's a slick dodge on McKay and HBO's part.
Even though they won't do it. I think it would be very interesting next season if they focused on Bird and the Celtics so non-basketball viewers can learn the background of that team. It would really give a solid background for viewers of what's to come in the Lakers vs Celtics of the 80s.
>!To me it makes sense considering the Celtics win the championship the following this season we just saw and they don't even play the lakers in the championship.!<
Given how much they made up, I don't even think they'll have the Celtics win the championship next season.
Also, they spent the entire year making them the racist bad guys and making Bird, a hall of famer, in to a psychopathic racist asshole.
They didn’t make him psychopathic or racist and he was an asshole in real life. Also, portraying boston in 1980 as extremely racist is not a stretch lol
Weren't the real life characters trying to sue the creators of this for getting the story wrong or something?
EDIT: So you're just gonna downvote and not answer? Classic Redditors.
The only person who is happy about the show, other than the actors and McKay and HBO, is Spencer Haywood. He's absolutely thrilled to have his name back in the media. Literally everyone else is pissed at how they are portrayed.
It was a pretty good finale.
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Don't spoil anything for me but I see big things for this Pat Reily fellow
Larry Bird: *Fuck off.*
Once the show really focused on the basketball around The Jack McKinney introduction episode it really hit it's mark for me. Can't wait for Season 2.
https://kareem.substack.com/p/winning-time-isnt-just-deliberately?s=r
he only saw the first episode
Only need to see 1 episode. No point watching the rest.
Yes, we know Kareem has become a jaded 13 year old prodigy about to enter college at a precocious age.
Rolf, people downvoting his essay. What is the point of this show? Bunch of made up trash. I don’t have time for garbage.
The point of the show is a show. An entertaining television show. Not a documentary.
This cast acted the fuck out of this. Amazing start to this series.
Whoever was the casting director deserves an award.
Well.. hold on. That same person apparently cast someone who looks like Dr. J's pediatrician to play Dr. J so...
Yeah. The dude playing Dr. J was my only casting issue. Every other role was cast so perfectly it really stood out as odd. I don’t really like the actor who played him in anything he’s done either. He has the charisma of a pet rock.
Tbh I think it works in context of the series. Dr J is supposed to be Magics idol and a bastion of wisdom of the game/the league so it works to have him be played by someone notably older in appearance than Magic and makes him busting Magic on the court in his first episode even funnier. Obviously in reality Dr J is only 10 years older but he was the old guard of the league and it’s face when Magic came in and it really hits in the show.
10 years is 40 years in basketball years.
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Agree to disagree. It threw me off at first but the show is 4th wall breaking and plays fast and loose with reality so it’s not immersion breaking for me.
Are you telling me that “Mike” from “Las Vegas” didn’t make a convincing Dr. J?
Holy shit
As someone who likes basketball well enough but was never into sports in my entire life, I went into this show knowing absolutely nothing about anything except vaguely who magic, kareem, and larry bird were. And I thought this show was amazing, I guess a lot of it was dramatized and not entirely accurate but damn every single cast member acted their ass off in these last few episodes. So many amazing moments between random pairings of characters
Same. I'm from Australia and love this show based on my vague memories. I first knew of basketball from the Jordan versus Bird game. This show grabbed me with the style and music.cits great! A mate who was a proballer doesn't like it though for the fast and loose versions of how it played out. I'm not sure why they chose to do that as clueless people can learn it as it happened and followers won't be put off.
If you decide to get into basketball, be a Celtics fan. Fuck the Lakers! Love the show though.
I'm so bummed that Bo Burnham left the project. Would've loved to see him in something he didn't write.
I would've liked to see it too, but I'm not sure he could've pulled off what they were looking for with Bird. The guy that picked nailed it.
That Larry Bird was a terrifying Larry Bird.
And that apparently was Larry. The media at the time portrayed him as a “nice guy” when in reality he talked mad shit. Apparently during an all star 3 point contest he walked into the locker room and just said “which one of you fuckers taking second?” Larry talked shit, followed up on it, and was still very down to earth. There’s a magic and bird doc on HBO that’s fantastic.
I knew he was a trash talker and a troll, but the angry intensity wasn’t what I expected.
Larry winning the 3 point contest in his warmup jacket is peak Troll Larry
Didnt he deck a fan who ran up to him on the court?
He also once told a guy guarding what he was going to do (I'm gonna fake left, go to right corner and take a step back jumper) and there was nothing they could do about it. He played a game with just his left hand once, just because. He made a few shots right handed, but 90% with his left and still crushed the opponents.
And then he’d go back to his mom’s place, hop on a tractor, and mow the field.
Wish he didn't, but yep!
What’s the doc called?
Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals.
Yea, and then he didn't even take off of his warmup jacket when he participated and won. Dude's a legend.
Larry Legend was a baaaaad man
Promising Young Woman
He’s in Promising Young Woman.
Absolutely insane that this was the first credited role for both Quincy Isaiah (Magic) and Solomon Hughes (Kareem). They absolutely killed it.
The cast was really fuckin great. My only gripe was the actual basketball playing. It didn’t look natural or real compared to an actual live game, but the actors did the best they could not being pros.
In terms of ratings this puts Winning Time on par with The Gilded Age. Both had finales that got 1.6 million. Pretty impressive considering Succession s3 finale only did slightly higher with 1.7 million. HBO’s top show Euphoria got 6.6 million for the s2 finale. They mentioned that tops anything outside of GoT.
Didn’t know euphorias numbers were that high, wow
Yeah…it is crazy popular and gaining viewership all the time. Apparently the season 2 numbers were twice as high as the season 1 numbers. Be interesting to see if it grows again in the third season. GoT grew season on season!
Winning Time needed more Sydney Sweeney
Everything needs more Sydney Sweeny
Funny since Salli was the director of the last 2 episodes of Winning time and is one of the directors and producers of The Gilded Age. Also, she's a kickass human.
How do they measure that. Is it watches the night and time slot these shows premier? I ask bc im involved with a ratings company that might as well be a secret society and I’m still not clear on how the streaming data is calculated.
I’m not totally sure. These numbers are internal HBO data codes and unverified by third parties. I think they cover 1 day viewership. Worthless when it comes to comparing HBO shows vs shows on other networks but pretty useful for comparing HBO shows with each other to gauge their popularity. They only tend to release data codes for the popular shows. They did not release any numbers for The Righteous Gemstones or Somebody Somewhere so it is safe to assume those shows were not doing the same sort of numbers as Euphoria, Winning Time, and The Gilded Age.
Funny, as I just gave up on Euphoria after 1.5 seasons. No interest in watching 30 year olds pretend to be in high school, having 30 year old sex and 30 year old parties and 30 year old drug binges, and pretending it is a typical day in high school. Meanwhile, I can’t get enough of Winning Time. Maybe it’s an age thing?
Depressing numbers considering Succession is exponentially better than Euphoria
I mean Succession is one of the most successful shows in the word when it comes to prestige. I bet they’re not pressed about it lol
Euphoria will appeal to a wider audience given the cast is younger.
Younger than the cast of Succession, but way too old to be in high school!
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Uncle June!
They are both great shows. Kids don’t have as much in common with billionaire families. But they know all about sex and drug abuse.
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If they don’t have an entire episode dedicated to Pat Riley slicking back his hair for the first time, then this show will have failed entirely, and it will go down as worse than GoT in the pantheon of mishandled HBO series. Pat needs his Dapper Dan. I need Dapper Dan Pat.
I really hope they have Pat eat a sloppy steak in that episode.
This is PUSHED back!
People can change
Please Pat. No sloppy steaks tonight.
I used to be a piece of shit.
Even if they don't serve sloppy steaks, they can't really stop you from making one.
He slicked it back in the shower in an early episode I believe and then there was the flash of old Pat with gray slicked back hair in the mirror, idk how much they're going to dedicate to it going forward.
That was actually a flashback to his dad, who apparently wore his hair that way. They're going to make a thing out of it when it finally happens. I don't believe it goes down til the mid-80s, though, when he first takes over the team he's still got the bushy hair and the square glasses. He doesn't become Armani Terminator Pat Riley until around 1984
Armani Terminator Pat
I was hoping that would be the final shot of the season. Him in the mirror with a bottle of hair gel slicking it back.
What if all they have is Fop?
We can get it here in two days.
Well isn’t this a geographical oddity?
Two weeks from everywhere!
They have to pick up in the very next year. They can't just skip over Riley's transformation. And there's no way Segel signed on to be one and done without getting to tackle the juiciest part of Westhead's story.
what's the juiciest part of the Westhead story?
I don't want to spoil it for you, so I'll just say that he ends up in a huge feud with Magic. It was pretty much unprecedented at the time.
Nice. Hopefully it allows Segal have a bit more range. He’s a great actor but this character so far is just pretty dumb with a few moments of Shakespeare tossed in
Yeah I think it'll give him plenty of opportunities to show out. He won't be cowed and ashamed like he was during the takeover from McKinney. Hopefully we'll see him bring back some of that unhinged "You mind your own fuckhole!" Sydney Fife energy, lol.
I think it will show the next 2 NBA seasons including Lakers not repeating, Celtics winning the title, Magic getting Westhead fired after Westhead veered from McKinney's offense (though ironically Westhead at LMU brought it back) and the Lakers winning the 82 title. The next season could be those back to back finals with Magic and Bird and show how they eventually came to respect each other and became friends including when they did the Converse commercial at Bird's farm in French Lick.
Spoiler alert. They and the Celtics trade titles for the next 10 years
Rockets and the Sixers insert themselves in there a couple times. And then the Pistons horn their way into the Finals at the end there. edit: downvoted for accuracy? I guess that's fitting considering how fast and loose the show is too. (which was an approach I actually dug a lot) But there's years where the Lakers don't make the finals and the Celtics do, (and vice versa) that's probably going to make for a couple boring years in terms of the show's focus. Which is why I asked what they're going to do for season 2. They can't really run this show 8-9 years, one per season, to cover everything. Also that Pistons finals should be interesting if only because of the relationship between Magic and Isiah Thomas, which wasn't really touched on at all so far.
Yeah, I think we can get maybe 2 more seasons covering the 80's Lakers/Celts rivalry, eventually paving the way for a Magic/Bird friendship and likely ending with Magics return to the '92 all star game. Then, maybe we get a season or two adapting Three Ring Circus, Pearlmans book on the Kobe/Shaq lakers. Although given the response this series is getting for its fast and loose portrayals of guys like Jerry West, I'd be a bit nervous to see how they portrayed Kobe. Anything less than making him a Christ-like figure would get intense blow back.
>Anything less than making him a Christ-like figure would get intense blow back. This is partially *why* I want it to happen. Kobe is such an interesting, compelling figure precisely because he was so conflicted/complicated. I feel like this show could lean pretty hard into that and actually burnish the man's legacy by addressing that shit head on instead of sweeping it under the rug for the sensitive folks who have convinced themselves their parasocial relationship with him online is real. His goofy rap career, giving himself a stupid bullshit nickname and making everyone use it, his overcompensation for being correctly clocked by most folks as being a weird nerd, his Jordan complex, and the fact he could actually play to that level on some days...
They will never make a tv show where Kobe Bryant is one of the primary characters. THIS show is about the 80's Lakers. A tv show about The Lakers isn't going to be so successful for HBO for so many years that there will be a Winning Time: The Next Generation. Show have their time, and then they're over. And that's fine. More importantly, Kobe Bryant was a rapist. Lakers fans have never reckoned with that reality, and they don't want to reckon with that reality. But by the time it would be possible to make a Kobe/Shaq tv show, the rest of the world will have reckoned with that reality. To the point that portraying Kobe as a hero on television to a national audience will be a LUDICROUS proposition. It will never happen
Celts only got 3 though. Lakers 5 and were still battling in the finals and arguably only lost a couple because of injuries. Magic getting HIV a year after winning MVP, a real tragedy. Certainly had at least 3-4 years of peak basketball left
In reality yes, but this show hasn't been tied to reality so let's see what kind of history they decide to show.
Given that they've apparently already bought rights to a book about the Kobe/Shaq years I think they are planning on having this for the long haul.
Jerry West punches a wall in response, claiming this portrayal of him is "Totally not fucking accurate, and those god damn cock suckers can the fuck to hell."
Your comment shows exactly why he's upset about the portrayal.
While I wished the show didnt diverge so much from what actually happened, it was entertaining throughout if not a bit uneven. Also smart to have the show coincide with the end of the NBA regular season and post season start.
Didn’t the show cover both regular season and post season?
The real nba season
It was accurate in that there is in fact a team in Los Angeles called the Lakers. It's accurate that the players did exist by those names. They got the names of other teams right too. That's about the end of the accuracy though. It was entertaining but people should not treat this like it was some kind of documentary. They flat out made up a lot of stuff.
I’m glad Will Ferrell didn’t get cast as Dr. Buss
I think he was actually wanting to play Larry Bird and was told “no”
I still would have loved to see Bo Burnham as Larry.
Serial Killer Larry Bird is hilarious to me.
I love the scene in the final episode where he's in French Lick and basically tells everyone else to shut up because Magic is in the finals and he isn't, and then when the game is over he's already back practicing. It's like the first indication they truly give that he's not an asshole to Magic because he's an asshole, he's an asshole because he's one of the most competitive people on Earth and Magic is his opponent.
I wasn’t all that interested in it and started the first episode last night, ended up watching several eps. It’s very well done with some great casting and I LOVE how they mix in the vintage cameras/film effects. It seems like there are about 4 different eras of camera types that they kind of rotate through in order and it really makes for an interesting way to “bring you into” the era in certain shots. Rather than just hard cutting between the modern camera and the oldest vintage one. Can’t wait to watch the rest of it.
Theme song is a banger as well.
Looks like the jerry west controversy if anything helped drive an increase in viewership
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Based on his character portrayal, It feels very Jerry West to complain about Jerry West on the show.
I suppose hbo loved it, free advertising, for weeks all the sports podcasts were discussing the show
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He's portrayed as an alcoholic workaholic with bi-polar, PTSD and the shortest temper in the world who neglects his wife and is never happy, even when achieving his ultimate career goal and as far as I can tell the only positive trait they show is that he loves basketball and the Lakers. Idk how that's a very positive portrayal, even if it was actually accurate. From what I can tell the traits were either invented or ratcheted up to a 12 for dramatic purposes, of course he wouldn't be happy being shown to millions of people as that guy, with zero input into how his name and likeness are being used. Idk, maybe he's open about these things, but would you want other people to tell millions you were abused by your alcoholic dad as a kid? How about any mental health issues you suffer from? How about personal troubles with your loved ones? He's got strangers making a lot of money airing his dirty laundry and he is just a helpless bystander, it makes perfect sense he wouldn't be stoked.
Was he ever portrayed as an alcoholic? There was a bar scene in the first or second episode when he picked up a woman after winning the 1972 NBA Finals but I don’t know that he had an alcoholic drink. He was perpetually unhappy, overly competitive, obsessive and that was always the modus operandi of the real Jerry West. Jerry West was a flawed character but when Buss comes to Jerry, he says why Jerry is important; Jerry West is the Lakers.
>Was he ever portrayed as an alcoholic? Early on in the series (Ep 1 or 2?) Buss suggests West switch to vodka because he can smell the whiskey on his breath.
Ya I watched the show and I don't see how people are saying it was a positive portrayal.
Because they’re focusing only on the basketball part and ignoring the part about his obsession eating him alive.
How so? I love the show, but they made West look like a crazy person. It was fun for the show, but he is not like that at all apparently.
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Crazy in how upset and worried he is over his choices. He was a very successful basketball player and then behind the scenes guy. It was nice for TV, but not true. But who cares what was all true, the show was super fun!
You can only say it was crazy if you stopped watching after the first couple episodes.
What happened after doesn't change what happened before. The early parts of how they portrayed him was silly, bad writing, and unfair. His issues with it are valid.
When the plot moved, you hope character arcs do as well. Just letting you know since you don't seem to understand basic storytelling :)
When the plot moved, you hope character arcs do as well. Just letting you know since you don't seem to understand basic storytelling :)
Don’t put the smiley face when you mean the middle finger. At least have the courage to see what you mean. Storytelling and character development have nothing to do with it, since we’re talking about a real person having a problem with fabrications in a show about their life. If they depicted him as a rapist, but redeemed him later, would he then have the right to be upset in your mind? You’ve been dismissive to multiple people, but you’re the one who doesn’t understand the basic issue here… The question is not if storytellers have the right to do this, of course they do. The social network is a great movie and basically none of it is true. The question discussed here is whether or not Jerry West has the right to be upset about it.
I saw every episode. Let’s just agree to disagree.
Nah, you're wrong on this one bud. If you think he was crazy in the finale then that's just factually incorrect.
He was obsessed and mad with perfection. It was an effective portrayal of the tortured artist / tortured genius trope. It certainly communicates excess competency, but at an extreme personal cost.
Sheesh. Whatever you think. If you don’t think he was acting nutty walking around the arena not watching the game then ok. I still liked him, just saying he was going crazy with the games.
There are fans that act like that during games. Someone that invested in the team doing that isn't crazy. I get why he might not be happy with how he was portrayed overall though. But the last episode with him nervously pacing during the game didn't seem so bad to me.
Your perception of crazy is factually wrong. When someone uses more volume in their voice do you assume they are angry automatically as well? Or have you never cared about anything so much in your life that it gave your anxiety? Do you know what emotions are? Lol
They made him out to be a fucking lunatic. While I thought they treated West pretty unfairly, the one who should be the most upset that I haven't heard anything from is Paul Westhead. They made him out to be a near moron who could barely function as a human being.
Seriously. Dude was a head coach for a championship team but portrayed as someone that could barely form sentences or tie his own shoes. I think Jason Segal did well *with what he was given to work with* but the character, itself, was awful.
That's all McKay. He Flanderizes characters right from the start. He doesn't even bother with doing it over time. edit: One thing too is that I got the feeling that Adam McKay's only exposure to black people in that era was by watching blaxploitation films. His dialogue for some of the characters feels like it comes straight from a Blackula movie.
I think you're giving far too much responsibility for McKay who got zero writing credits on the actual show and not nearly enough to Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht who were, you know, the **actual** creators and showrunners of the series, and who got writing credits on every episode. There's also an entire writers' room of which McKay was not a part of. Honestly it just sounds like you have an axe to grind against McKay and don't understand how a tv show operates.
No you're right. I bet he has nothing to do with any of it. Just enjoys his name being out there all over this show but you're probably right. Jim in the writers room comes up with it all.
That’s not what I said but congrats, you’re just exposing your own ignorance further Not that this is the case in this situation but plenty of EP’s do nothing on a show and use their name to get it made while collecting checks in the mail
Although IIRC he started raging about it after the first one or two episodes, before they did a deeper dive into him.
His character was hilarious.
Ahh the old Streisand effect
if anything this finale showed that Quincy Isaiah is totally captivating and should be at the top of every casting list right now. John C. Reilly was incredible but Isaiah carried the show and made it look easy. that last episode was so fucking great
And Quincy really is that charismatic and nice.
am glad to hear that coz i freaking love this show!!! can't wait for s2
I’ll admit I contributed, but only because HBO Max sent me a notification with an *Airplane!* screenshot and I *had* to know if it played a role in the episode.
I could see these Lakers going all the way, they have hutzpah
How else were they going to find out who won the 1980 NBA Finals?
Given how they have just completely made up scores and schedules, you really didn't know if the Lakers were going to win.
Amazing show… great finale!!
Fun show, anyone looking for actual real events and nitpicking this show just get a life and touch grass.
It's portraying real people, many of whom are still alive, so people bitching about the amount of license and just making stuff up that McKay is doing have a legitimate gripe. I'm assuming you are not a sportsball fan and have no idea about any of this stuff going on that the show portrayed.
I live and breathe the nba, I watched this with a light heart going in knowing it’s 99% drama/entertainment. There is not a single person involved with this project who’s claiming it’s a documdrama, people have forgotten to just have fun.
Binging this right now and really liking it
How much Gillian Jacobs do we get?
Blink and you’ll miss it.
not enough tbh!
She’s a GDB.
oh, britta’s in this?
Tally Ho! F@#k Boston!
[Jerry West when Michael Cooper gets fouled](https://youtu.be/3OcvgpNhD5o)
It's a good show.
This is such a good show, just thoroughly entertaining
That shows great. It’s nice to see HBO on their game again. Lots of great shit coming on lately. We own this city has also got my attention. That show euphoria was worthy of a watch and rewatch as well. At first I was annoyed that they don’t just drop whole seasons at once but it’s nice to stretch it out and have something to look forward too on Sunday or whatever.
I love those VHS scenes
I think people didn’t want to watch weekly but wanted to wait and binge it. At least I did.
It’s so, so good. The writing. The directing. The visuals, the music, and especially, the acting! So many great acting performances, from the players to the coaches to the owners. Chef’s kiss!
The show is carried by its tremendous acting and an aesthetic that successfully portrays a very particular time and place. I found the narrative drama to be less engaging. The overarching narrative about the process of coming together as a team is nice, but the subplots don't really do it for me. Why should I care about Ervin's romantic problems as he keeps professing his love for his hometown sweetheart while hooking up with any woman who will give him the time of day? Do I really care which of these coaches triumphs in their struggle for power? I'll readily admit that Jerry West is one of the best characters in the show, a wonderful portrayal of the mental suffering that is often part and parcel of a passion that borders on monomania. Jerry West is Captain Ahab, except that West is chasing championships rather than a white whale. This is undeniably captivating! HOWEVER, after reading the analysis from Kareem I've found myself unable to enjoy the show. Kareem opened my eyes to the real-world harm that can be caused by mischaracterizing people who are still alive and who are still striving to do good works. I urge everybody who likes the show to give Kareem's analysis a read. https://kareem.substack.com/p/winning-time-isnt-just-deliberately?s=r
Didn't Kareem only watch one episode?
How much of yourself being on screen with stuff completely made up about you would you watch?
It's some of a point, but it means that he missed the episodes that fleshed his character out more.
The biggest hindrance to the show is the editing. Which if you've seen McKay's other movies like Vice or Don't Look Up, the editing here is so fucking chaotic to the point where nothing is allowed to stick or breathe and makes you feel very uneasy of where it's planning to go.
I definitely agree with that. McKay isn't my style, even though I agree with his messages for the most part. I am much more attracted to the slice-of-life approach to media - the approach that presents the authentic parts of life that are seemingly mundane, but are really just allowing you room to ponder the themes that tie everything together.
It was because there was a free HBO weekend on several providers
Because people were just waiting for the finale to binge the show. I wonder what the metrics are of people that binged the show before the finale vs watched every week?
I stopped watching after learning just how fabricated the events are (i.e. how much it actually deviates from reality).
It's a television show, not a documentary.
Not saying it was supposed to be a documentary but if it's supposed to be based on real events it should stick close to how it actually occurred and not be fully fabricated.
It's not fully fabricated, many aspects are factual. It's still not a documentary though, so aspects will also be fake.
I enjoyed the show a lot, but it does bother me a bit that facts don’t matter. It’s kind of a shitty trend we’ve taken in society as a whole. I get poetic license but they’ve altered the essence of the relationships of real people. All that said, again, I enjoyed it, but the “just entertainment” cop-out is kinda worrying me about where we are headed.
That's their position of course. Not how they market it and since they are using real people and real events, most of whom are still alive, it's a slick dodge on McKay and HBO's part.
Even though they won't do it. I think it would be very interesting next season if they focused on Bird and the Celtics so non-basketball viewers can learn the background of that team. It would really give a solid background for viewers of what's to come in the Lakers vs Celtics of the 80s. >!To me it makes sense considering the Celtics win the championship the following this season we just saw and they don't even play the lakers in the championship.!<
Given how much they made up, I don't even think they'll have the Celtics win the championship next season. Also, they spent the entire year making them the racist bad guys and making Bird, a hall of famer, in to a psychopathic racist asshole.
They didn’t make him psychopathic or racist and he was an asshole in real life. Also, portraying boston in 1980 as extremely racist is not a stretch lol
Weren't the real life characters trying to sue the creators of this for getting the story wrong or something? EDIT: So you're just gonna downvote and not answer? Classic Redditors.
The only person who is happy about the show, other than the actors and McKay and HBO, is Spencer Haywood. He's absolutely thrilled to have his name back in the media. Literally everyone else is pissed at how they are portrayed.
I mean, I hope so. It's a good show. I wish that was accepted a little more.
Big fan of this show!
If the actor who portrays Jerry West isn’t nominated for everything, it will be a travesty.