Last week, HBO announced that the second season of Winning Time: the Rise of the Lakers Dynasty will debut Aug. 6 at 9 p.m. ET. That’s fabulous news for anyone who enjoyed the first season of the Adam McKay basketball dramedy.
Here are five questions we have for Season 2:
How will Magic Johnson’s role in the firing of Paul Westhead be depicted?
In today’s NBA, star players exerting their power to demand management changes is nothing new. Happens all the time. One of the more famous recent examples happened last August when Kevin Durant reportedly asked Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai to fire general manager Sean Marks and coach Steve Nash. Pat Riley once revealed that LeBron James wanted Erik Spoelstra canned in 2010. Sometimes it’s not that overt. Sometimes it’s passive-aggressive. The disintegration of the Johnson-Westhead relationship has always been fascinating, especially after winning a championship in Magic’s rookie year. As chronicled in Season 1 of Winning Time, Westhead was only elevated to head coach due to a bicycle injury to Jack McKinney. The HBO show did a great job of showing Westhead growing into his role as the boss. It’ll be interesting to see this interpretation of how badly things fractured and how cutthroat Johnson could be.
What will the rise of Pat Riley look like?
Early on, the Winning Time version of Pat Riley was someone a little more relatable and not the icon he is now. He had doubts and certainly wasn’t someone exuding relentless self-confidence. You might not see his ascension coming if you knew nothing about the real Riley. The series of events that had to happen for Riley to eventually become one of the sport’s greatest coaches is remarkable. It is clear, however, that both in non-fiction and fiction that once Riley had this opportunity, he was going to do everything he could to seize and hold on to power. You don’t get to be in Riley’s position without ruining friendships and making enemies. We’re looking forward to seeing how dark and maniacal Adrien Brody gets with his version of Riley.
Will Sean Patrick Small (Larry Bird) be the breakout star of Season 2?
In a star-studded show with so many characters and plot lines to follow, not everyone is going to get an equal amount of screen time. We got to see some of Small’s Bird in Season 1. Based on what we’ve seen from the Season 2 trailer, it looks like the Bird-Magic rivalry will now take center court. That’s exciting to hear because we’d like to understand a little bit more about this particular portrayal. In real life, Bird’s trash-talking greatness was legendary. He was also the perfect foil to Magic in a rivalry that built the NBA into the success it enjoys today. Small did a good job of showing off some of Bird’s cockiness. We’ll see how he handles a bigger role.
What kind of role will Hadley Robinson’s Jeanie Buss have?
Jeanie Buss has been called the most powerful woman in American sports. You could do a series or movie about her life alone. It wasn’t an easy journey for her to become the owner of the Lakers after the passing of her flamboyant father Jerry Buss. There were a lot of messy family dynamics, including thwarting a coup by her older brothers in 2017. The Winning Time version of a young Jeanie Buss shows her slowly becoming familiar with the family business of basketball. It will be compelling to see her relationships evolve with her dad, Magic, and Claire Rothman. Seems fairly clear that several people underestimated Jeanie Buss’s savvy and ability to learn quickly.
The start of a dynasty.
— Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (@winningtimehbo) December 21, 2021
A first look at John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss, Gaby Hoffman as Claire Rothman, and Hadley Robinson as Jeanie Buss in #WinningTime. pic.twitter.com/aOissGrUsr
Will Jerry West continue to complain about Winning Time?
Some, mostly older, viewers took issue with the HBO dramedy. As if it were supposed to be a documentary and not a comedic fictional take on real-life events. (They must really be upset at Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). Ok. Winning Time wasn’t for everyone. One of its most vocal critics was Jerry West who was so displeased with how he was portrayed that he demanded a retraction and threatened legal action. That was a bad idea for several reasons. No.1, it only brought more attention to the show and made younger audiences want to check it out. No.2, many people enjoyed Jason Clarke’s over-the-top performance. After having a year to think about it, perhaps West will either decline comment or fully embrace the fictional West. It’s not that bad and is actually kind of fun.
