Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

Filler episode for Episode 3 (8/20). Second straight filler episode. Darn. Don’t really need the Bird backstory, don’t care about Buss playing hoard games.

That episode should have been Utah issue, the SI shoot, Riley taking over, slicking back the hair and West throwing trash cans during his first game back on the bench.

 

They wanted to drag out the Riley/Westhead issue for another week to show the disconnect between them, fair enough. But wasn't much to this. Actually the Telemarket$ episode behind it was pretty good.

I'm almost positive it was the first episode where we didn't get a scene of Magic or Buss banging some groupie.

 

Adrien Brody was born in Queens but in the first episode of the second season he uses his thumb, index finger and forefinger when signifying "three" with his fingers, like the Europeans do, instead of the index forefinger, ring and little fingers, like most Americans do. I just found that interesting.

 

I do it the European way because neither of my hands effectively do the American version. The nerves are weirdly linked or something. Same reason I can’t play an instrument.

 

Having done telemarketing during a summer, this documentary is interesting to me.

 

The original plan blew up because Hickox fucked up the German 3 ...

 

Of course Westhead becomes the most interesting character in the show when he's on his way out.

 

The pace of this season is slower than The System.

I can’t envision Westhead grooving to disco at the Forum Club after polishing off the Pacers.

 

In what was basically The Americans' "filler" season (season 5), they had one scene that was five minutes of people digging a hole with no dialogue.

 

I'm not watching this series, but I will say that Paul Westhead was the best coach I worked with during my 25-year writing career -- not necessarily the best coach, but the best coach to work with. LMU was damn lucky that it had someone with his intelligence and eloquence to deal with the Hank Gathers death. He handled that situation the best it could be handled.

He explained things very well and he talked slowly enough to write it all down accurately. I will remember that if I asked a question he didn't want to answer, he gave me a usable quote (much better than "No Comment") that applied to what I was asking, but didn't exactly answer the question.

 

I'm assuming Westhead is the only coach to have an NBA title, WNBA title and Elite Eight college basketball team on his resume.

Malone High School in Florida, a small town school in the panhandle, ran a version of the system and won a shitload of state championships in the 90s before the small private schools took over the classification. They were fun to watch...pass, pass shoot.

 

I think I have a bigger issue with how Paul Westhead is portrayed in this than even Jerry West being an f-bomb dropping prick throwing lampshades every episode.

Westhead was a college head coach at La Salle for a decade before joining McKinney with the Lakers (they were coaching rivals for years in Philly in the early 1970s). The show makes him out like a scholarly version of Shooter from Hoosiers taking over after McKinney's bicycle crash.

Now it has Westhead grooving in the Forum Club to "Apache" after winning games over the '81-82 Bulls (which is an awesome scene). I tend to doubt he was like THAT. But it's entertaining as hell.

I just wish they would get to the awkward presser with Buss-Riley-West when Riley eventually takes over. It'll have to be this Sunday when it could have easily been two weeks ago.