Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

Loved Lenny Wilkens growing up as a Hawks fan in the 1990s. He did some good things in Atlanta until the Hawks brass got rid of Steve Smith and saddled him with JR Rider. And don't get me started about the Dominique for Danny Manning deal.

Going back to Winning Time, we all know about West and Kareem's opinions -- has Jeannie Buss said anything about the series? Of course, she's been played pretty well, but I bet she can't be enjoying seeing her dad's antics, whatever of them may be true.

 

Those books were the best. I pounced on the NFL, NBA and MLB editions as soon as they came out.

 

The Washington Post did a great story about Herman Boone in the years after Remember the Titans. Boone made some jack on the lecture circuit and the Post said, more or less, that he had created a second career playing himself as depicted by the movie, rather than what actually happened.
As entertaining as Remember the Titans was, it really fictionalized things more than any supposedly true sports movie ever had:
1. Alexandria/Northern Virginia was not some football-mad area with a small-town vibe.
2. The kid who got paralyzed had his accident during the off-season.
3. The championship game had no such ending.
4. T.C. Williams couldn't help but win -- it was the merger of the biggest white school and the biggest black school in the area, both of whom were very good teams.
Sorry for the threadjack.

 

It's a miracle Goodrich survived playing with Wilt. They were both all about themselves.

 

I'd be curious to see if West pursued this and could set some sort of precedent for transferring libel standards to a drama that is based on reality, except when it wants to make a scene more interesting. Because for a lot of people, this show is what they will remember of Jerry West (or Kareem with the fictional scene in Episode 1 where he tells a kid to fuck off). The filmmakers are clearly violating the standard for libel by knowingly presenting something that is false, and counting on a disclaimer, plus "this is how things are done" to get away with it.

 

Goodrich was traded to the New Orleans Jazz for the No.1 pick the Lakers used to draft Magic

 

Goodrich didn't come off good in David Wolf's book about Connie Hawkins ("Foul," one of the best sports bio ever) when they were teammates with Phoenix. Really portrayed as a self-centered, shoot-first asshole.

 

Those being the days when I was young enough for pickup basketball, on the courts of Cambridge, Mass. in the early and mid 70s, any player who took consecutive long-range jumpers that clanged would draw cries of "Gail" from the opposing team, and sometimes even his own.

 

Anybody else think the show just sucks? Over the top bs. The title sequence is a dead giveaway of the pretension of the show.

 

I really, really want to love it. Love John C. Reilly and Jason Segel, and this was during my formative years when I became an NBA fan, so I remember bits and pieces of it.

But I'm with you, justgladtobehere, it is very over-the-top, and add to that the apparent complete bullshit that it is, and I can't enjoy it at all. Hate seeing Jerry Buss talking directly to the camera several times per show, and I don't really need to see the softcore porn of Magic going down on some bimbo again and again. Stopped watching after about the fourth episode.

I had purchased Pearlman's book a few years ago, and this gave me the impetus to start reading that. Getting much more enjoyment out of reading that.

 

If anything is great about this series, it’s the title sequence.