Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty’ On HBO, A Stylish Retelling Of How Magic, Kareem And Showtime Dominated The NBA In The ‘80s

Not many people remember what the NBA was like before the rise of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and, later, Michael Jordan. We were kids back then, but we remember tape-delayed playoff and Finals games, and a league that just had an overall bad reputation, whether it was deserved or not. The Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s were definitely one of the big reasons why the NBA is the behemoth it is now. A new scripted series takes a look at how the Lakers went from a perennial contenders to dynastic champions, with some of the most iconic stars in sports history.

WINNING TIME: THE RISE OF THE LAKERS DYNASTY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: People in the waiting room of a doctor’s office at Cedars-Sinai. “NOVEMBER 5, 1991. LOS ANGELES.” Earvin “Magic” Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) is sitting in an examining room right after he got his HIV-positive diagnosis. He seems sad but resigned; the agent/manager/assistant that helps him out the back and drives him out of the lot breaks down crying.

The Gist: We go back to 1979, shortly before that year’s NBA Draft. Dr. Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly) is hanging out at the Playboy Mansion, explaining to the camera why the NBA was at such a low point at the time. His informed speculation is essentially that fans are staying away mostly because the players are largely Black.

So why does he want to buy the Lakers from Jack Kent Cooke (Michael O’Keefe)? Because the stuffy, sexist and bigoted Cooke wants to settle his divorce and Buss believes in taking gambles on assets he thinks are undervalued. He’s managed to make a deal using cash and property swaps, including the Chrysler Building, and he’s excited to take over. He just needs the rest of the cash first.

Also, he thinks the two guys who battled in that year’s NCAA finals — Johnson and Larry Bird (Sean Patrick Small) — are going to revitalize the league. The Lakers have the first pick, and Bird is almost sure to land with the Celtics, who drafted him the year before and still have his rights until the next draft starts. But Buss is energized by Johnson, an electric, tall, personable point guard who went to Michigan State in his hometown of Lansing. Buss doesn’t just think Magic will be a great player; he thinks Magic will be a star.

Not everyone on the Lakers agrees. Head coach and Lakers legend Jerry West (Jason Clarke), still bitter over being beaten by the Celtics in the NBA finals throughout the sixties, thinks Magic is too big to be a point guard, and he “smiles too much.” Besides, they already have an all-star point guard in Norm Nixon (DeVaughn Nixon — yes, Norm Nixon’s son).

Buss also has some business plans for the Lakers: His daughter Jeanie (Hadley Robinson) wants to work for the team, in an era where women were rare finds in team front offices. He also plans to retain Claire Rothman (Gabby Hoffman), the general manager of The Forum, who was the first person to bring rock acts to arenas. For her part, Rothman wants to work for Buss; she’s tired of having to screw on a particular face and persona to satisfy chauvinist pigs like Cooke.

Cooke and Buss bring Magic and his father, Earvin Sr. (Rob Morgan) to LA to wine and dine him. Magic shocks both his father and Cooke by demanding $600,000, just under what the team’s center and star, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes), makes and commensurate with what Bird just got from the Celtics. Cooke balks, calls him “boy” and pretty much drives Magic off. Buss, though, stays in contact, and connects with Magic on a “regular guy” level.

But when Buss invites Magic to a “white party” thrown by Donald Sterling (Kirk Bovill), Nixon wipes the floor with him in a pickup game. Buss has his work cut out for him to take over the team in time for the draft and convince Magic to not go back to Michigan State.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? If The Last Dance were about the Lakers and not the Bulls, then married to a fact-based, funny and stylish Adam McKay film like The Big Short, the product would be Winning Time.

Our Take: McKay, who is one of the series executive producers, along with showrunner Max Borenstein, directed the first episode of Winning Time, and his style is evident. Reilly isn’t the only one who addresses the audience throughout the first episode, and there are funny graphics, fake “archival” footage and other stylistic flourishes to draw in both the viewers who know all about the Lakers’ Showtime era (raises hand) and those who only read about it.

Some of those flourishes work very well, like when graphics translate certain adjectives for players, like “hard-working”, to “white” and others, like “naturally-gifted,” to “Black.” It was a not-so-subtle way to illustrate the biases that were inherent in pro sports and the media coverage of it back in the ’70s and ’80s (heck, those biases lingered until the 2000s), and sets up the situation both Buss and Magic found themselves in when they came into the NBA more or less at the same time.

But once those flourishes settle down a bit, the performances stand out. Reilly channels the bombastic Buss well; the guy was a wealthy businessman but had that regular guy persona that Reilly always pulls off well. When the deal for the Lakers (which included the Kings hockey team and the Forum) went through, we celebrated with him as he laid down at center court and celebrated the fact that he owns it all.

What we were also impressed with is the uncanny performances by Isaiah as Magic, Nixon as his father and Hughes as Kareem. When we see a recreation of Kareem’s famous scene from Airplane!, for instance, we were surprised at how close it was to the real thing (maybe it helped that the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams play themselves). Isaiah, though, manages to remind us of the gregarious young Magic without sacrificing the emotion and motivation behind his decision to ask for a then-massive rookie contract.

Are there going to be moments in this miniseries where things aren’t going to quite match how sports fans remember it? Sure. It is a fictionalized account, albeit one based of Jeff Perlman’s book Showtime. But the performances, the funny moments, and even the style that McKay imparts to the show for other directors to carry forward, all make Winning Time an entertaining recall of the NBA’s rise to prominence, thanks in large part to the Showtime Lakers.

Sex and Skin: As Buss is talking into the camera, he’s next to a naked woman, whose enhanced chest we briefly see as she rolls over.

Parting Shot: The aforementioned scene where Buss lies at center court in The Forum, whiskey bottle in hand, and says, “I fucking own this!” Then she screams with happiness.

Sleeper Star: Claire Rothman isn’t exactly a role you’d expect Gabby Hoffman to be playing, but she embodies Rothman’s tough, seen-it-all attitude quite well.

Most Pilot-y Line: The caption for Donald Sterling is “The 2nd Worst Donald of the ’80s.” We thought it was funny, but the dual reference is directly aimed at both sports fans who know how racist Sterling was and Gen X New York-area residents who remember how overall awful young Donald Trump was.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty is a whole lot of fun, whether you were around in the ’80s to experience the Showtime Lakers firsthand or not. It’s enhanced by fine performances and a style imprint from McKay that lends itself well to the topic.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.