Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

I remember reading Roger Ebert’s review of All the Marbles, which featured Peter Falk as the manager of a women’s wrestling tag team
His lead was: “The wrestling is terrific in this picture.”
And it was
The wrestlers, Vickie Frederick and Laurene Landon, were dancers
The movie wasn’t so hot but in the climactic match, the TV announcer was Chick Hearn

 

My friend played for Terhune in the movie; he's handling the ball on the infamous call that brings Shooter drunkenly stumbling onto the court. Several of the players got in trouble with the NCAA for their participation; suspended and had to repay. My buddy had to write a check to the studio paying them back...and then they never cashed the check.

Also...controversy!

 

Frederick, Landon, and their main opponents in the film were trained by women’s wrestling legend Mildred Burke, who had a school for many years. Burke said they were trained so well that they could have done well in the business.

 

Getting a 6'11" guy who passes for Kareem is amazing. I assumed that the show was using camera angle tricks to make players look tall.

 

He never acted before. Also has a PhD from University of Georgia.

 

Episode 7 was more of the Westhead Can’t Handle This Team Narrative. So grating because it’s nowhere near the truth.

Two weeks after he took over, they had a three-game losing streak. 3 road losses over 4 nights to Portland, Seattle and Phoenix — top four teams in the West in 1979.

After that, Westhead’s Lakers went 36-10 to close out the season. No losing streaks more than 2 games and winning streaks of 4-4-6-7-5.

Winning Time has caused me to go back and look through Lakers games from 1979-80. What you’ll see most with Westhead is just hit him sitting back, legs crossed, hands together on his kneecap. He appears confident in his team that they’ll win and they usually do.

 

The dramatization of what really happened aside, I really appreciate the little things they do in the background.

From last night, the old Panasonic banners along the facade of the Boston Garden's upper deck, and Rick Barry shooting his granny-style free throws.

 

The scene of the Lakers going into Detroit (actually, the Silverdome) and getting plastered by the then-abysmal Pistons was hilarious. The Lakers had a 10-12 game winning streak against the Pistons after Magic arrived. The Pistons never won a game against LA until 1985, that is, when the Bad Boys group started getting good.


And yeah, the portrayal of Westhead as a simpering sissy is particularly stupid.

 

Anyone looking for anything approaching subtly from Adam McKay is going to be disappointed.

 

The problem didn't start until the 1981-82 season, when Westhead wanted to put "his" stamp on the team. . . . by having everything run around Kareem. That caused everything to bog down ("Showtime" used Kareem in the offense as a damn good last resort; Westhead wanted everything from the start to revolve around Kareem). The only "evidence" you'll find is the 1981-82 season's first 11 games.

 

One thing that was true is Magic wasn’t accepted by the league right away
It was only after the clinching Game 6 against the Sixers when he went 42-15-7 as Kareem’s replacement that Magic earned respect

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t...kers-series-winning-time-season-2-1235126769/

Had no clue they would be continuing to stretch this out. I figured it would just be the one set of episodes, culminating with Magic's HIV announcement. But I guess there's more meat on the bones across another 12 years of history into 1991.