The second season of HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty has amped up the focus on internal conflicts within the Los Angeles Lakers’ organization in the early 1980s. And that comes with a particularly notable one in Sunday’s upcoming fourth episode, “The New World.” That would be a testy discussion between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes, seen above in this season’s second episode) and Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) on the way to the bus after a tough loss, with Johnson complaining about the team’s system under head coach Paul Westhead and Abdul-Jabbar telling Johnson he should take his own advice and humble himself. Here’s an exclusive preview clip of that:
That starts with Johnson telling Abdul-Jabbar “Good game, Cap,” and him responding “That’s not what the final score said.” Johnson then says “I’m telling you, this system **** ain’t working. You’re out there killing yourself and we’re still losing by 26?” and Abdul-Jabbar says “It might help me if other people played their roles.”
Johnson then says “You think I ain’t trying? Out there running the same way, moving in the same spots. Ain’t how we won the whole damn thing with [former head coach Jack] McKinney, remember?” Abdul-Jabbar says “Of course I remember. And I also remember you telling me that this team could benefit if I just humbled myself. Yeah. Shrunk the ego a little bit. Perhaps it’s time you took the same advice.”
Of course, most sports fans are familiar with how these conflicts ultimately got sorted out and how those Lakers went on to incredible success. But there certainly were notable conflicts here, as explored in the Jeff Pearlman Showtime book the series is based on and now explored in the series. And this season’s focus on some of the conflicts adds some new dimensions to what was already an entertaining series. And even for those aware of these conflicts, it’s interesting to see the takes on them from actors like Isaiah and Hughes.
This fourth episode, premiering Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO (and also available to stream on Max) examines not just this Abdul-Jabbar conflict with Johnson, but also conflicts between Johnson and the rest of the team over his record-setting contract, and coaching tensions between Westhead and assistant Pat Riley. As the clip shows, all wasn’t well internally with the team at this point. And Winning Time‘s take on some of those conflicts is certainly notable.
