Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rip "Winning Time"

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Bob Jersey

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Apr 20, 2022, 9:57:06 AM4/20/22
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The Lakers greats took different paths to do so... West fired off a nasty letter to Adam McKay and HBO calling for legal retraction of his portrayal, while "Cap" on his (paywalled) blog generally knocked the "bland characterization" and questioned how it "turn[ed West] into a Wile E. Coyote character"...


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PGage

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Apr 20, 2022, 11:03:30 AM4/20/22
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The list of things I am actually an expert on is very small; one of the items on that list is the Lakers in general, and the Showtime era in particular. I actually am enjoying the HBO series, even though Kareem is my favorite athlete of all time, and Jerry West one of my childhood heroes. 

Kareem, who has become one of the most thoughtful and insightful of public intellectuals, is still not exactly high on the sense of humor scale, and I think does not get McKay’s style or tone. Winning Time exaggerates Kareem’s more surly personality traits in the pre-Magic days, and does not sufficiently contextualizing them, but it is in the ballpark. 

But it’s portrayal of West is more puzzlingly extreme and distorted. West was (and is) extremely intense, but it is fueled more by pathological and self destructive anxiety, not insecurity or assholitry. I guess McKay just wanted a comic foil, but it’s kind of mean spirited to leave such a negatively defining imprint on such an important and tragically unhappy figure.

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Brad Beam

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Apr 20, 2022, 10:23:46 PM4/20/22
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From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of PGage

>But it’s portrayal of West is more puzzlingly extreme and distorted. West was (and is) extremely intense, but it is fueled more by pathological and self destructive anxiety, not insecurity or assholitry. I guess McKay just wanted a comic foil, but it’s kind of mean spirited to leave such a negatively defining imprint on such an important and tragically unhappy figure.

 

As a fellow WVU graduate (‘96 v ‘60) and Kanawha Countian – “Zeke from Cabin Creek” is geographically inaccurate; he grew up in nearby Chelyan – I will just provide the response from long-time WVU beat reporter Mitch Vingle, via Twitter:

 

I’m weighing in on the “Winning Time” controversy over Jerry West. I’m an ex-journalist so I get why West hasn’t sued. Won’t work. Neither will asking for an apology. That said, West deserves respect. West Virginians know what a terrific man and story he is. Doesn’t deserve this.

 

_   _

|_>|_>  Brad Beam- Belle  WV

|_>|_>  http://www.facebook.com/74bmw

Dave Sikula

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Apr 21, 2022, 6:49:45 AM4/21/22
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I was a fan of those Lakers, too, and I just can't get past the, frankly, stupid and unnecessary tinkering with history in the name of creating a (badly-told) story. The most egregious examples in the latest episode were that, despite the show claiming that the first Lakers/Celtics game that year was played in Boston around Christmas, the teams had already played at the Forum, and LA had won handily. Even the game they did create had the wrong score and the wrong outcome (a tie-breaking free throw vs. a "dramatic" last-second shot).

In addition, the show's conceit was that the Lakers were reeling under Westhead's leadership, when they had just won something like 10 of 14 at the time they went into Boston -- in February, not December.

Even something as simple as the team's flirtation with Elgin Baylor was that he would take Riley's place, not Westhead.

If they can't get even those basics right, they have no business painting the rest as even remotely factual.

After this disaster and "Don't Look Up," I'm starting to wonder if Will Ferrell was the brains of the partnership, after all. (Which, if true, is a very, very low bar.)

--Dave Sikula

Bob Jersey

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Apr 25, 2022, 2:28:43 PM4/25/22
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Winston Cho, who f'rinstance reported on the Disney special-district termination at THR, notes that the disclaimer at the start of each Winning Time episode won't necessarily stop any lawsuits over its content...

Moi, April 20th:

daves...@gmail.com

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Apr 26, 2022, 12:41:19 AM4/26/22
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West could probably win a defamation suit based on just Clarke's shitty accent.

--Dave Sikula

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PGage

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Apr 30, 2022, 10:39:09 AM4/30/22
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I have just watched episodes 5-8, and have to say I am liking it more and more. Of course it gets many of the historical details wrong. I believe the Lakers and Celtics did play in late December that first year, but that was the Forum game Dave mentions the Lakers won handily. The nail biter at the Garden was a few weeks later.

But the show is not a documentary, and it is not about getting archival facts correct. With all the liberties they took, I thought the episode about that first game in the Garden really captured the sense Laker fans had of the deck being stacked against them when playing the Celtics, and the role of racism and back room business decisions in how the league operated. 

While they probably exaggerated Larry Bird a little, they nailed his basic personality and basketball skills exactly. Nothing gets my juices flowing like a couple of rounds of a good “Fuck Boston” chant. Though the truth is, if I were to make a series about that time one of the main themes would be how I went from absolutely hating Larry Bird, and seeing him as an overrated, racist asshole, to loving him, for his excellence on the court, his cold hearted trash talking, take no shit independence and, most of all, for how he, almost alone among basketball stars, stood by Magic Johnson during the most difficult days of his life.

I worshipped Chick Hearn, so am not pleased with his depiction, though at the time my family and friends always joked about how the role of his Color Man (whether Lynn Shackelford, Pat Riley, or Keith Erickson) was to say “Right Chick” and then shut up, so I have to admit it’s not unrecognizable.

 I still find the portrayal of West to be mean spirited, but as the show progresses they are getting closer to a more accurate depiction of him as intense, driven and miserable, not a thin skinned, vain asshole. I really liked the scene of West and Magic talking after a regular season loss to Dr J’s 76ers (setting up things to come) with West talking about needing to win more than needing to be liked. I’m not sure how literal that is, as my memory is Magic came into the league with the Will to win, but it makes an important point effectively. 

I also like how the show is presenting and preparing the ground for the emergence of Pat Riley. Many casual fans probably assumed he was already the Head Coach this first year, but his cool, controlled intensity was as much an act of self creation as was that of Buss and Magic. I learned to love Phil Jackson, and it is hard to argue against him being the best NBA coach of all time, but Riles is still my favorite coach, in any sport, as he really knew how to treat grown men and elite, skilled athletes with respect for their autonomy, while still pushing and shaping them to play as a team.

At the end of the 1970s the NBA was struggling. It had been through a series of cocaine scandals, it was seen as too Black to attract big advertisers, and the championship series was on tape delay at 11:30 pm in Los Angeles. A handful of players, owners and league executives intentionally transformed it into something else, compromised by but not completely submitting too the dominant institutional and street racism of the day. And Magic invented a way of playing basketball that really was O Jogo Bonito, which at the time we knew was singular, and would not be seen again. 

So no, if you want to know the schedule and score of every Laker game in the 1979-80 season, don’t watch this show; check Basketball-Reference.com. But if you want to get a sense of the time, and of the emergence of a new thing, this HBO series is not a bad place to start.

daves...@gmail.com

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May 1, 2022, 12:53:42 AM5/1/22
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I'll agree it's fiction, rather than a documentary, but the problem for me is less that the Lakers/Celtics game was in February and the second game they played than it's utterly baffling what the point McKay wants to make is. If he's going to portray the Boston fans as racist assholes, sticking to the actual chronology doesn't change that. How does changing that or how the game actually ended (on a free throw, basically) enhance the story?

How does making up crap about West and Kareem in the way he does contribute to our understanding of them? The former was -- and is -- high-strung, but showing him as psychotic is as lazy as having the withdrawn Kareem swear at a child.

Maybe Westhead was under pressure, but to lie about his record going into the Boston game and all but say Baylor was being brought in to replace him, rather than Riley is, again, sloppy and unnecessary.

As I said, between this and the "LOOK AT HOW FUNNY WE ARE!" tone of "Don't Look Up," it's pretty clear McKay has one gear, and he's worn it out.

--Dave Sikula

On Saturday, April 30, 2022, 07:39:12 AM PDT, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

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David Bruggeman

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May 1, 2022, 2:00:17 AM5/1/22
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Allegedly this project was either what led to McKay and Will Ferrell breaking their professional (and possibly personal) relationship, or the final straw.  But alas, it has little to do with the veracity of the project but that Ferrell wanted to play Jerry Buss.

I recognize it can be ridiculously difficult to leave a field where you've had great success, even when it seems you're on the productive downslope, so to speak.  But it wouldn't hurt for McKay to go away for a while.

David

PGage

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May 2, 2022, 2:11:43 PM5/2/22
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I don’t dispute the inaccuracies, or even that many of them seem unnecessary and (as I have said with The Logo) unnecessarily mean spirited). But, while in a documentary inaccuracies even in small details legitimately undermine the value and credibility of the whole whorl, with a project like this that does not really apply. Learning that Shakespeare got many of the details of the War of the Roses wrong does not really impact the artistic value of Henry V. Not that Adam McKay is Shakespeare.

I really liked this weeks episode, even though I have profound doubts about the historical accuracy of their presentation of the last days of Jessie Buss.

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