Winning Time...the story of Magic Johnson and the Showtime Lakers is excellent. Will his cards jump?
1948_Swell_Robinson
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I started watching the new HBO series Winning Time, the story of Magic Johnson and the Showtime Lakers. Four episodes in and it is excellent! When I heard John C Reilly was playing Jerry Buss I thought it was going to be cheesy, but it isn't, and Reilly is perfect!
Right off the bat you can see it has a different vibe from a typical show. It isn't a documentary or a Saturday Matinee rock star story...and it doesn't hold back as it takes full 'pleasure' of being aired on HBO.
It has actors portraying all the key participants in the story...Magic of course. Jerry West is featured heavily. Some have said West comes off overly angry and in a bad light. They do show him having angry sex 
Jack McKinney is great so far. Jason Segal plays Westhead, Adrien Brody is Pat Riley. Chick Hern is on there.
They show all the players, including Jabbar. Norm Nixon is featured a lot. All the players so far; Michael Cooper...and even Mark Landsberger who is upset that he was called "fat" by McKinney.
They teased Larry Bird a little and showed him(as portrayed by an actor)...and they showed Red Auerbach too, so they may be more prominent down the road. 10 episodes this season....no news of how many seasons there are, so we will see.
I can see Magic Johnson cards getting an uptick if this show is a hit. I think the show has great potential to catch on. Super famous shows such as Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones usually have a little bit of a lag before they catch fire and people go back and start watching after they have initially aired and word of mouth has put everything in motion.
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I haven't seen the series, but I love Magic. I hope all his cards go up, even the cheap collegiate collection cards !!!
I am a couple of episodes behind but am enjoying the show so far!
I think Magic has a series coming out and I feel like another team one might be with both being like Last Dance so those may have an impact too
Hi grade 1983-84 Star Magic will jump IMO. Short print. Tough to find centered too. Great colors and action shot.
Kiss me twice.....let's party.
You read my mind. I was just browsing some of those. Between those and the 1979 Sportscaster rookie, the limited runs of those are going to give them a little extra push with any increase in demand.
GREAT show!!! I've already been scooping up Magics in anticipation of it. Some Pat Rileys and other role players too.
No wonder all the Michael Cooper rookies have disappeared!
Smart move.
This show was better than I thought it would be when I first saw the previews. It's been pretty entertaining but its also had me wondering how much of the storyline is historically accurate.
I also just read that the guy playing Norm Nixon is actually Norm's son which is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to any Bird/Magic interaction in future shows.
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
I also just read that the guy playing Norm Nixon is actually Norm's son which is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to any Bird/Magic interaction in future shows.>
I agree about the historical accuracy, one of the 1st things I did after episode 3 was research the Tarkanian story line, and that of his associates.
Need some 2007 A&G Regular Back Mini's PM if you have any and I will send my needs list.
1982 BASF Lakers may get a bump.
Kiss me twice.....let's party.
Yup,that was one that I checked. Another was if Jerry West was the team's head coach at the time Magic was drafted (He wasn't and hadn't coached the Lakers since 1973.) Also how they portrayed Buss as this womanizer who was putting up Wilt Chamberlain numbers lol which apparently I wasn't aware of. I do think Michael Chiklis was perfect for the Red Auerbach role.
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
I haven’t watched any of the series yet (I think it’s on HBO which I don’t get) but cool trivia question… what is James Worthy’s rookie card?
Join the Rookie stars on top PSA registry today:
1980-1989 Cello Packs - Rookies
Where are you getting that from? I’m pretty sure he coached from 1976-1979. 1973 was the last year he played.
Oops, looks like I read it wrong. That makes more sense now.
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
Tark was set up to be the Lakers coach and opted out after his friend was murdered.
One inaccuracy was the show made it seem like Pat Riley was being hired as an assistant broadcaster to Chick Hearn the year Magic was drafted. Riley had already done two years next to Hearn prior to that.
The latest episode is Jabbar centric and really good. Shows the first game of the season....and has a future star in the audience, the son of SD Clippers Joe Bryant, an infant Kobe Bryant who would have been just over a year old at the time
Accuracy hasn't been confirmed but it is a cool tie in.
I'm liking the series more and more.
"Put me in coach!" I literally laughed out loud at that scene.
I'm really blown away by how perfectly cast Solomon Hughes (playing Kareem) and Quincy Isiah (playing Magic) really are. If McKinney's bike accident was half as horrible as depicted here...wow.
I agree. The bike accident took me by surprise on how real it looked.
Yes, the players are doing a great job. The cast is really good all around.
Best line so far...Chick telling Riley, "You'll know when you're being fisted."
I decided to buy HBO Max. I started watching this show. So far, I really like it. Jerry West wanting to draft Sidney Moncrief over Magic is absolutely mind blowing.
Looks like Jerry West isn't too happy on how they've portrayed him so far: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33769604/jerry-west-demands-retraction-apology-portrayal-hbo-series-winning
Ironically, the portrayal of Celtics fans in this most recent episode seemed to fit perfectly when you look at everything going on with Kyrie irving vs C's fans earlier that day lol.
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
I was wondering if West had thoughts on the show.
I have to catch up. I missed the latest episode.
Not really....
Moncrief had a traditional four year run with Arkansas improving steadily each year.
I would imagine West saw a lot of himself in Moncrief and viewed him as the more predictable pick over the bright glow of the rising star that was Magic Johnson.
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Yes, true.
Moncrief ended up being a HOFer. He was an absolute beast defensively.
The Bucks did well with Moncrief, and their biggest crime was having the misfortune of getting knocked out of the playoffs by the 76ers and Celtics every year from 1980-1986. The East was absolutely loaded. They won 50+ games every one of those seasons too, with 60 being their most.
They hired Gary Vitti who was the Lakers long-time trainer for 30+ years during this period as an in-house expert paying him good money to provide insight. He was on set for no more than a couple of days and quit. Why? Because he could not stand to see the ridiculously false portrayal of Jerry West. When he mentioned that the Jerry West they were creating was nothing like the actual Jerry West the expert had worked with and known for 30 years the show decided that they needed that "character" to provide more drama so they decided against listening to the expert they brought in to provide insight.
This is always the problem with historical-based reenactments. They almost always distort the facts to a point where far less truth than lies. The worst part of this is the audience often believes everything depicted as truth and then spreads it to a point where the falsehoods are now believed to be fact. This is why I chose to steer away from watching this show and generally avoid historical movies/TV shows.
West definitely has a beef. They really make him look a little off in the show.
That whole thing and "Johnny Most: class act" had me laughing most of that night and the next day.
great first episode, I like it. Not a Lakers fan but I do like Magic and the 80s
Just caught the latest episode. Great as usual. The dynamic between Jabbar and Magic is intriguing and the conversation Jabbar had with Magic's father really added to it.
Official introduction of Larry Bird too! Awesome.
i have been watching this show so far and it is so wrong. last episode i watched they had two games before boston game and they had the lakers losing both games which in reality they won both before boston. also i looked up the stats in the boston game and magic only had one point the whole game. jabbar was a one man show in that game. also reilly never got ejected from that game. it has been a entertaining show so far.
did bird really act like that the way he interacted with johnson.
Yes, they alter some of that for the drama, and I wish they did not do that. They did the same thing with Pat Riley. They made it seem like Pat Riley had joined the announcing team in Magic's rookie year, but Riley had already had that job previous to that season.
Bird wasn't buddy buddy with Johnson at that time, but that meeting most likely is exaggerated.