Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

Although there's a brief moment depicting Haywood with the Lakers as casually interested in possible drug use, I believe it was very common knowledge at the time he was with the Knicks that he was a full-blown industrial strength cokehead, widely believed to be the impetus behind his abrupt midseason trade from the Knicks to the Jazz in Jan. 79.

 

Wood Harris, the guy playing Haywood, is 52.

 

Haywood looked 40 when he was 22.

 

I know that's typical Hollywood, but that's a trip that he was about 30 playing high school-aged Julius in "Remember the Titans."

 

After watching the most recent episode I am even more convinced the only people who will come out of this series looking good are Jeannie Buss and Cookie Johnson

 

Joe Barely Cares.

 

Sort of like Granville Waiters. I distinctly remember in one of Zander Hollander's preview books, Waiters' profile included the line "How can a man so young look so old?"

 

Let's ask Greg Oden

 

How young would you look if you had to worry about the cops, Marlo, Omar and Brother Mouzone?

 

Funny thing is he's been playing basketball on screen since Above the Rim in 1994.

 

I thought he pulled it off pretty well; he was believable as a 17-18 year old.

I'm sure he's picked up some wrinkles of his own, but the makeup makes him look 40ish (in reality Haywood was 30-31, but it was an old 31 thanks to his frequent voyages up Toot Toot Mountain and lots of hard hard games on the bare-wood-over-concrete-floors in the ABA in the early 70s.

Which brings up a tangential thought: Jesus, it seemed like every single player who advanced from the ABA to the NBA looked about a decade older than they actually were. A lot of it was drugs, but a lot of it was playing too many games in drafty, underheated arenas in front of a few hundred fans, on flimsy wooden floors slapped down fast over concrete base or hockey ice.

And it also must be noted that some guys like the Doctor and David Thompson who had spouted tall billowy Fros in the ABA, fairly quickly trimmed down to fairly modest naturals in the NBA.

 

What rabbit hole has Winning Time led me to... which NBA coaches of my youth have died, without much attention, in the last year or two.

Gene Shue.
Tom Heinsohn.
K.C. Jones
Bill Fitch
Gene Littles
John MacLeod
Tom Nissalke
Dick Versace
Stan Albeck

Still Alive:
Kevin Loughery.
Hubie Brown (!)
Lenny Wilkens
Paul Silas
Don Nelson
Doug Moe
Dick Motta
Al Attles... still with us.