Five Bad Things About Winning Time: Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

By: Brock Vierra

As season two of Winning Time: Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is set to premier this month, I went back to rewatch season one. Season one was very entertaining and the performances of John C. Reilly, Sally Field, and the rest of the cast should be given the credit that it is due. However, the writing was something else. Now I understand creative liberties have to be taken but they took things to the extreme and have completely fabricated the true story of the Showtime Lakers. Here are five things about the show that are just awful. Spoilers ahead.

Jerry West isn’t an angry, bitter, drunk, boozer. Now Jerry West has one of the most interesting and tragic stories in basketball history. He grew up in an abusive household with a father who would regularly beat his kids. A kid at the mercy of the coal mine industry, he would lose his brother in the Korean War as well. Emotionally he was stunted, and he would suffer massive waves of depression. However, this depression would make him shut out the world, not turn him into a raging lunatic. West would lose the 1959 NCAA National Championship Game by one point, and he would lose 8 of the 9 NBA Finals he played in. A person who has overcome tremendous odds in the face of multiple failures, Winning Time portrays him as a has-been who has no control over his anger, the same anger that his father had. That is just a slap in the face to the man who worked so hard to not be what his father was.
Mama Buss wasn’t there. Throughout the series, we see the relationship that Jerry and his mom Jessie Buss had, and it touches the heart. Whether it be their witty and messed up sense of humor towards each other, formed out of a rough life lived in poverty or the softer moments as she approaches the end of her life, where her son, the eccentric millionaire is stripped down to being just a desperate boy trying to safe his mom. When I say that it will have you balling, I mean it. It’s such a well-crafted and put together relationship, the mom and son. The accountant and the playboy, the dog and the leash. Their dynamic is one of the highlights of the show so it’s a slap in the face when you find out that in reality, Jessie Buss passed away way before Jerry Buss bought the Lakers. Yes, one of the most emotional scenes of the show is fake. It never happened. The relationship of Jessie with young Jeanie, the grandmother mentoring the blossoming woman who is attempting to make her name in the world of basketball not only didn’t go down like that, but it also never went down at all. It’s upsetting and even more disturbing when they show Jerry Buss sleeping and lowkey assaulting Jessie Buss’ nurse.
They completely trashed Paul Westhead. They made Paul Westhead look like a word that starts with b and rhymes with which. Jason Segal’s performance of Westhead makes it seem like he was over his head and was a nervous wreck. In reality, Westhead won instantly. The Lakers remained dominant, the Celtics game was just another game and Elgin Baylor was never going to replace Westhead. Pat Riley didn’t have to get ejected and Westhead went 50-18 in 68 games. There was no panic attack, Riley was never an interim coach and Jack McKinney wasn’t ready to come back until mid-March. Paul Westhead is actually a legit coach. He won the 1980 NBA Finals; the 2007 WNBA Finals and he helped turn the Loyola Marymount basketball team into a force to be reconned with before the untimely death of Hank Gathers. Paul Westhead has a unique history that has defined the current landscape of basketball and he’s portrayed as an idiotic chump.
Spencer Haywood was on coke, not crack and yes, there is a difference. Coke is viewed as a rich drug, crack is viewed as a poor drug. Coke is used by the rich, white, elite. Crack is used by poor, black people living in ghettos. That’s how the drugs are portrayed. In the show, Haywood’s drug use is brought into play via his use of a crack pipe despite being a highly respected and wealthy member of the league. Spencer Haywood is portrayed as this hard nosed player who’s attempts to win a ring for his baby girl are derailed when he falls victim to stress and then to crack and it seems like it is the ultimate betrayal when his close friend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the deciding vote that kicks him off the team. He then falls into the slums and is habitually using crack in a literal crack house while his life turns to mush. Here’s the truth. Paul Westhead kicked him off the team. Kareem was not his friend…ever. He used coke. What isn’t mentioned is that he won a Supreme Court case that allowed players to enter the NBA out of high school instead of having to wait until they spent four years in college, a move that shunned him in many corners and contributed to his stress. The show doesn’t mention his mental health issues or the issues he had with teammates who were jealous of Haywood’s girlfriend, the supermodel Iman. Haywood is a complex character who has been belittled into a stressed induced crack head and that’s not right. Oh and he never tried to kill the Lakers.
We’re just gonna glance over Donald Sterling? So many of us know Donald Sterling as the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers who was banned from the NBA for life due to his racist ideology, an ideology he has probably had his entire life while simultaneously owning a basketball team…a sport completely dominated by African-Americans. However Donald Sterling is portrayed in Winning Time as a random rich dude that Jerry Buss knows who is hosting an “all-white” party. Like Magic Johnson, I had no idea what an “all-white” party was but basically its a party where you dress in all white. Very odd but moving on. It is at Sterling’s house where Johnson meets Lakers starting point guard Norm Nixon and is subsequently beaten by Nixon in a game of one on one, making Johnson ponder if he should return to college. So this party is at Sterling’s house where he randomly has a basketball court. Upon Johnson meeting Sterling, it’s clear Sterling has taken a liking to him or possibly his private parts but that’s the end of it. Buss says Sterling is too cheap to buy a team and we move on. Hopefully we see more of Sterling in season two considering that in real life, Sterling buys the then San Diego Clippers in 1981.