Winning Time (HBO) Season Two: A Review – 'Winning Time' Plays a Losing Game

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!***

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Great topic. Poor execution. Bad series.

Winning Time, the HBO series that chronicles the Los Angeles Lakers tumultuous rule atop the NBA during the 1980s, finished its second, and later announced, final, season on Sunday night, and it wasn’t so much an airball as it was a brick that landed with a resounding thud.

Watching Winning Time has been one of the more frustrating experiences for me as a cultural critic and basketball fan who was fortunate enough to live through the events portrayed in the series because the story it attempts to tell is so fascinating, interesting and dramatically compelling, and yet the series has consistently missed the target on every attempt.

The first season was a frustrating and muddled mess, but at least it had a bit of edge to it as it dramatized the rather uncomfortably voracious, and sometimes predacious, sexual appetites of both Lakers owner Jerry Buss and the team’s young superstar Magic Johnson.

Buss’ crude and problematic sexual behavior was well-known and, of course, so were Magic’s sexual escapades as they led to the HIV infection that ended of his career, which makes those stories vital to tell. But there can be little doubt that current Lakers owner Jeannie Buss, Jerry Buss’ daughter, was uncomfortable with that level of truthful examination and pressured the producers to be less edgy in their portrayal of her father…and probably Magic too, as Winning Time decidedly lost its balls in season two in regards to Buss and Magic’s failings.

Jerry Buss in season two was transformed from a creepy old-man, wannabe playboy into a broken-hearted victim of lost love, and Magic went from being a hopeless horn dog into a sexless monk who only had eyes for his hometown girl, and eventual wife, Cookie. Neither of these storylines was in the least bit compelling but they ate up the majority of season two.

Another indication of the producers genuflecting to Jeannie Buss is that her new husband, comedian/actor Jay Mohr, was given a small role in season two as an agent.

Interestingly enough, Winning Time did not change its very odd and at-odds-with-reality approach to Jerry West, the team’s GM and former iconic player. West, one of the greatest players and executives in league history, was made out to be a raving lunatic in need of institutionalization in season one – and the real Jerry West publicly complained about it, but he’s treated not much better in season two.

The problems with season two are numerous, chief among them is that it tries to cover so much ground and end ups rushing through most everything.

Season one had ten episodes and covered the team from drafting Magic in 1979 to winning the championship in his rookie year (1979/80). Season two has only seven episodes and has the gargantuan task of chronicling the 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984 seasons…which is a hell of a lot as the Lakers went through major coaching and personnel changes as well as three NBA finals, winning one.

In addition to that Herculean task, the show also struggles to have a discernible protagonist upon whom it can focus the majority of its attention. Season two stumbles between Jerry Buss, Magic and Pat Riley as the drivers of the story and while all of them are worthy of being front and center in a tv series, none of them get adequate story time here to fully flesh out their character and fully realize their story arcs.

The antagonist is a shifting target as well…as it is sometimes snooty head coach Jerry Westhead, and often-times the boogie man of racist archrival Boston Celtics, their fans and the team’s star Larry Bird.

It is certainly not surprising in this day and age that race and racism is centered in a story, but the racial angle in Winning Time is never effectively manifested. For instance, the Celtics’ only sins are that they have more white players than usual in the NBA. None of them are overtly racist, their only crime is being white. In fact, the only people who comment on race are the black players on the Lakers, for example, Kareem calls Larry Bird a “punk ass white boy”.

The series also makes stuff up about Boston fans attacking the Lakers’ team bus after an NBA finals game in 1984. It seems to greatly undermine the series’ thesis of Boston and its fan’s being rabidly racist when the writers/producers have to concoct a pseudo-racist incident in order to make their point. It seems obvious to say but if you have to make things up in order to show groups of people (or individuals) as racist, then that probably means that the alleged racism in question didn’t exist in the first place.

Larry Bird is made out to be some sneering devil incarnate, which I suppose the Lakers and their fans felt he actually was at the time, but in reality, for all his trash talk and fearless play, Bird was as shy and progressive a soul as any human being despite being an absolute killer on the court.

Unfortunately, with the series being cancelled after season two which ended with the climax of the contentious 1984 finals, which is the height of unintentional comedy as the Celtics won the series, which must’ve tortured the blatantly pro-Lakers/anti-Celtics makers of this series. (As an aside, I attended the infamous game 5 of this series in the furnace known as Boston Garden, and laughed deliriously as Kareem, sitting a mere 50 feet from me, sucked on an oxygen mask as he tried to survive the sweltering, suffocating heat). The series ending its story in 1984 means viewers never get to see Bird and Magic’s bitter rivalry transform into real life friendship on screen. Although to be honest, I can’t imagine the series would be any more effective portraying that than they have been portraying anything else.

The acting in Winning Time has always grated as it gravitated much too close to caricature for my taste, and it always failed to re-create the basketball with any sort of realism.

For example, Quincy Isaiah plays Magic Johnson. Isaiah does a decent job in portraying Magic in the dramatic scenes, and has a passing resemblance to him, but Isaiah on the basketball court is an embarrassment. First off, he is a chubby guy with a paunch, which is difficult to overlook. I mean, you knew there was going to be a second season so why not bust your ass with a personal trainer and get into shape? Secondly, he is awful at basketball…and can’t even fake being a player. If I saw Isaiah as Magic do one more – jump in the air/fake left/ pass right move, I was going to gauge my eyes out. Although to be fair, that repetitious basketball garbage wasn’t nearly as bad as the endless phone calls between Magic and Cookie where he tries to sweet talk her. Yikes.

A different type of example is Solomon Hughes, who plays Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Hughes is actually quite good in the role and perfectly captures Kareem’s brooding and distant personality. And Hughes is even a respectable basketball player (he played briefly in the NBA) so he passes that physical test. My one problem with Hughes is that he’s playing Kareem Abdul Jabbar, one of the greatest players of all time, and yet he never attempts to replicate Kareem’s signature shot, the skyhook. That’s like playing Elvis and not learning how to shake your hips. I can go out into my driveway right now and mimic Kareem and take ten skyhooks and hit maybe five of them…so why couldn’t Hughes work on that one shot and get it down? I mean, it’s not like he needs to be able to actually score in a real game, they’re playing on a film set so everything is fake…so why not?

A positive example of this is that Sean Patrick Small, who plays Larry Bird, actually tries to shoot in a similar fashion to Bird. His rendition of Bird’s shot isn’t a perfect replica but its close enough and believable enough. Small also has a passing resemblance to Bird, which is a compliment to his playing of the role but on the street would probably be fighting words, and he actually does a solid job in the dramatic scenes.

The same cannot be said for my old friend Adrien Brody who plays legendary coach Pat Riley. Riley is a master motivator who looks like a male super model but Brody is a phony and dullard who face looks like someone took a baseball bat to a Jack-O-Lantern that had melted in the summer sun. That Adrien Brody has won an Oscar is remarkable considering his shallow and toothless portrayal of Riley in Winning Time, as Brody lacks the presence and gravitas of the real-life Riley, and commands zero respect on the screen.

Jason Segal as feckless coach Paul Westhead is no better. Segal is an uncomfortable dramatic actor who relies on shallow mannerisms instead of depth of character and acting skill, and his Westhead barely registers as caricature, never mind character.

Jason Clarke is usually a good actor but his Jerry West is on another planet as he’s a one-note crazy person. West is one of the most remarkable people in NBA history and yet here he’s reduced to a yelling machine.

On the bright side, John C. Reilly really is terrific as Jerry Buss. Reilly never loses his grip on the enigmatic Buss despite being saddled with a below average script. It is a shame that Winning Time never lives up to the quality work that John C. Reilly does in it.

Another bright spot was Hadley Robinson. who plays Jeannie Buss and is quite compelling, but unfortunately the script never gives her anywhere to go or anything to do. She is nothing but a second-thought in the story and that’s a shame as in real life Jeannie has lived a very interesting life.

I didn’t like Winning Time, as it felt, despite its big budget, like a rather flimsy series that was better in in thought than in execution. But the truth is that I’m not like most people as I’m not looking to be distracted or mildly entertained by a tv series. I’m actually looking for something great, something transcendent and Winning Time sure as hell isn’t that. Greatness, which was the hallmark of the showtime Lakers on the 1980s, is nearly non-existent in modern day film and tv, so rare as to be virtually non-existent.

I realize my standards may be higher than other people’s so I try to watch things through more lenient and forgiving eyes. Which begs the question… is Winning Time at least entertaining? Frankly the answer to that is…not really. The series is, at its heart…just a sort of silly exercise, as it has the feel of grown-ups play acting…and not very well.

The bottom line is that as a member of the prime target audience for Winning Time, I wish it were better and I wish it succeeded…but it isn’t and it didn’t…and now its cancelled…so it ultimately doesn’t really matter.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023

Winning Time (HBO): A TV Review

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A second rate recounting of a first rate story. Just more fool’s gold from Adam McKay.

The title of the Adam McKay produced HBO series that chronicles the critical 1980 NBA season for the Los Angeles Lakers, Winning Time, subtly says a great deal about why the series is ultimately a failure.

Winning Time is based on the Jeff Pearlman book Showtime, which was aptly titled since it documented the birth and growth of the Showtime Lakers, which, along with Larry Bird’s blue-collar Boston Celtics, revitalized the NBA and the game of basketball itself in the 1980’s.

“Showtime” in this context has multiple meanings in that it refers to the Lakers flashy, up-tempo offense, Magic Johnson’s jaw-dropping passing ability, million-dollar smile and superstar charisma, and the team’s new glitzy, Hollywood-friendly image.

But “Showtime” is also a cable channel and HBO’s main competitor, so they couldn’t name the series “Showtime” despite that being the perfect name. It would be like McDonalds naming their new burger the Burger King.

So, “Showtime” was jettisoned and the series became the banal and boring Winning Time, which sounds eerily similar to the 90’s Saturday morning show and Saved by the Bell wannabe, Hang Time, about a high school basketball team. Hang Time starred former NBA player Reggie Theus and gave the world Anthony Anderson, and also set the art of acting back to the Stone Age.

Winning Time is little more than a glossier, glitzier, adult-version of Hang Time. In case you were wondering…that’s not a compliment.

Winning Time attempts to do the near impossible, make a compelling drama/comedy that has a cultural/political agenda and is filled with famous real-life characters, while believably capturing the essence of professional basketball as played at the time.

Ultimately, the series clangs off the rim in its shot at greatness because it is so ham-fisted in nearly everything it tries to do.

As a basketball fan the thing that was most uncomfortable about watching Winning Time is that the basketball in it is just cringe-worthy. This is not surprising since basketball is a very difficult sport to fake – see White Men Can’t Jump for proof of that, and in high school the drama nerds were too busy starring in Brigadoon rather than on the basketball court.

In recreating the 1980 Lakers (and their opponents) you first have to find actors who are big enough to be believable, and who share a resemblance to their famous characters. Once you have that…which is no easy task, then those actors need to be able to play decent basketball, which is highly unlikely since if they could be as remotely good at basketball as the character’s they portray, they wouldn’t be two-bit actors.

Quincy Isaiah is a perfect example. Isaiah has a passing resemblance to Magic Johnson, and does an excellent job of capturing young Magic’s exuberant essence off the court. But on the court, Isaiah’s pudgy physique and his lack of basketball skill is, frankly, distracting and embarrassing.

Most of the rest of the players, be they Lakers or Larry Bird or Dr. J, suffer a similar fate, and no matter how much the director’s try and hide the awkward un-athelticism on display, you simply can’t tell this basketball story without showing basketball, and the basketball on display is an abomination.

The only real exceptions are Solomon Hughes as Kareem, and DeVaughn Nixon as Norm Nixon, and even they more look the part than actually play it.

Hughes is a 7-footer who played at Berkley and had a cup of coffee in the NBA. He perfectly captures the sullen brooding of Kareem off the court, and while his skyhook is definitely a bit wonky (which begs the question…why has no big man over the last 50 years tried to emulate the single most successful basketball shot in the history of the sport – Kareem’s skyhook?) he makes for a somewhat believable presence on the court.

As for Devaughn Nixon, he looks so much like Norm Nixon it freaked me out…but then I looked him up and he’s Norm Nixon’s son, so mystery solved.

Unfortunately, most of the non-basketball playing cast members throw up an airball as well.

For example, Jason Segel’s over-acting as assistant coach Paul Westhead is high school drama club reject level of awful. Segel’s Westhead is a feckless, Shakespearean fancy-pants with no lips and even less balls. Segel may be charming in various comedies, but he is an absolutely atrocious dramatic actor.

Adrien Brody, whose face looks like it was found in Picasso’s garbage bin, is, astonishingly, supposed to play super model-looking, Gucci mannequin and future Hall-of-Fame coach, Pat Riley. Brody is appallingly bad in the role. And watching Brody try to chew gum like Riley is one of the more alarming things I’ve ever witnessed, it’s like watching a brain-damaged camel chew on a truck tire.

Jason Clarke plays Laker icon Jerry West, aka The Logo, like he’s auditioning for a community theatre production of The Shining. West has made a stink about his portrayal in the series and is threatening legal action, and frankly, I don’t blame him. Clarke is a fine actor, but his choices as West are so absurd as to be insane.

One of the lone bright spots is John C Reilly as Dr. Jerry Buss. Reilly captures the degenerate clown show that is Jerry Buss. Buss, like many successful men of that generation, was a delusionally depraved douchebag and thought of himself as a cross between Hugh Hefner and James Bond.

Of course, Reilly’s Buss is funny because he’s so ridiculous in his tight jeans, unbuttoned shirt and with his scientifically impossible comb over, but he’s also pathetic, manipulative and disgusting, as he keeps pictures of all his sexual conquests and uses his wealth and the terminal illness of his mother to basically sexually assault a nurse.

Buss’s smoke and mirrors purchase of the Lakers, and his revitalization of the team, which ultimately led to the birth of the modern NBA, is an important story, but Adam McKay is incapable of properly telling it.

McKay uses his usual bag of tricks, like breaking the fourth wall and using different film stocks to give a visual flair to things, but this doesn’t elevate the material but rather feels like empty parlor tricks.

Winning Time, like all of McKay’s “serious” works, is loaded with the director’s personal politics, in this case there’s a plethora of pandering regarding misogyny and the patriarchy. These cultural political issues in Winning Time are a lot like McKay’s various filmmaking quirks in that they feel manufactured and used to cover up fundamental flaws in the storytelling.

McKay came to fame as Will Ferrell’s comedy caddy and then made the leap with the extraordinarily impressive The Big Short. The Big Short was a stunning achievement, one which I never would have thought a director like McKay could’ve made…but he did it.

But since The Big Short, McKay has tried to tackle equally complex material and has floundered. Vice, the story of Dick Cheney, was an ambitious failure. Don’t Look Up was a scattershot attempt to make a climate change satire, and it fell flat. As more time passes and more “serious” McKay projects see the light of day, it becomes more and more clear that The Big Short wasn’t the beginning of a great run, but rather an outlier from an ambitious but artistically very limited storyteller. Winning Time is just more proof of this thesis.

Ultimately, Winning Time is a loser because it’s a story of Shakespearean scope and scale about basketball made by someone who has neither any genuine insight into human nature nor a true understanding of the complexities of the game. As any big man worth his salt would say as he swatted a sorry shot into the third row, I say to Adam McKay and Winning Time, “get that weak shit outta here!”

©2022