#102. More 'Winning Time'!
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This short bonus episode skips the usual opening banter and dives straight into another check-in on Winning Time (HBO Max), the dramatization of the 1979-era Los Angeles Lakers. Vic has fully caught up and confesses he's now eagerly counting down to each Sunday's new episode, though he notes the most recent installment was lighter on the show's usual nudity and heavier on actual basketball, which he liked. JVL pushes back on reading the series primarily as a sports show, arguing the basketball scenes are its weakest element — for him Winning Time works best as a portrait of late-'70s Los Angeles as a cultural epicenter, tying together Wolfgang Puck's Spago, LA Law, and the show's ebullient Paula Abdul cameo. The three dig into the Kareem–Magic locker-room confrontation and the deliberate choice to cast separate actors for Lew Alcindor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, praise Tracy Letts as coach Jack McKinney and Jason Segel as Paul Westhead (with JVL detouring into Westhead's real-life run-and-gun Loyola Marymount offense, Hank Gathers, and the 1990 UNLV juggernaut), and cover the Jerry Tarkanian/Vegas subplot and the murder of Jerry Buss's friend Vic Weiss. Sonny voices his one real complaint — that the show seems to hold its coaches (West, McKinney, Westhead, and Adrien Brody's Pat Riley) in contempt, painting them as dorks and doofuses — while all three praise John C. Reilly's Jerry Buss as a vastly better fit than the originally rumored Will Ferrell, and close by debating (inconclusively) whether the Lakers franchise or Buss's old Chrysler Building is worth more today.
From the show notes
The guys can't get enough of the famous Winning Time Lakers! One question, though: Does the show really care about basketball? Hard to say. We know one thing Vic cares about, however ...
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. LastwiścieBunch. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends. I normally don't finish these TV shows we do for bonus episodes. We've seen a bunch of these series, unless we have to. But I have to tell you, I am caught up on Winning Time on HBO Max.
Sonny00:00:43The famous Winning Time Lakers.
Vic00:00:45The famous Winning Time Lakers. And I have to tell you, it's becoming one of my favorite series where I'm actually waiting for Sunday to come around to see the next episode.
Sonny00:00:52You are looking forward to each episode.
Vic00:00:57Yes, although the last episode, this is what we're talking about on the bonus episode. We're talking about Winning Time, about the rise of the Lakers. There wasn't much in the way of nudity, but that's okay because we're getting to the actual basketball of it. I found it very compelling. JVL, were you able to catch up on an episode or two?
JVL00:01:20Yeah, no, I'm super excited for the sequel they're going to do, which is going to be about the Detroit Pistons. I think. Isaiah Thomas, Bill Lambert, Detroit Pistons. It's called Unpleasant Men. It's, the basketball is, funnily enough, the weakest part of.
Vic00:01:39You think, well, I use it because they sort of.
JVL00:01:41They just don't shoot it in ways which are interesting.
Vic00:01:43Okay. Well, there's barely any basketball in it. I'm wondering if it's because, well, you know, I mean, these are, I assume they're actors who then had to learn how to brush up on their basketball.
JVL00:01:57I just, I like it a very great deal. Yeah. I like it as a cultural artifact of the ways in which, I mean, it is a story about Los Angeles's place in American pop culture. The, you know, right around 1979. That's in the 80s. Through the 80s. In the intersection of all, you know, from Paula Abdul to Michael Jackson to Magic Johnson and Kareem. It was all sort of happening there. Like, L.A. was a real scene.
Vic00:02:32Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, I can't remember if we did, did we do the documentary on Wolfgang Puck?
Sonny00:02:40We did.
Vic00:02:41On Spago, because that was also the rise of California and the celebrities going to the restaurants. And it was, L.A. was the place. Absolutely. Absolutely. It was just super cool. I feel like it's less so now, but, you know, and L.A. Law, of course, you had a whole show. L.A. Law. Well. Lawyers in L.A. That's the show.
JVL00:02:59Now it's San Francisco. Right now it's Silicon Valley.
Vic00:03:02Yeah, it's Silicon Valley.
JVL00:03:03But, I don't know, I really, really like the guy who plays Kareem.
Vic00:03:08So do I. Oh, him. Oh, no, no. I like that guy. I like Quincy Isaiah as Magic Johnson as well. And the reason is we see a lot more of Kareem in the last couple episodes and sort of his, not origin story per se, but certainly more of his background.
JVL00:03:27One of the things I like best about this, my favorite artistic choice in the entire series, is casting different actors for Lew Alcindor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Vic00:03:35Yeah, versus trying to make him look...
JVL00:03:37Like, no, but I mean as an artistic, literally they just cast different guys to show the change from when he joins the Nation of Islam. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:03:49It's, I don't know. Wait, was it different guys in the past? Like, he... No, no, no. I understand that the other actor... No, it's the same guy. No, it's the same guy. No, it's the same guy. No, it's the same guy. No, it's the same guy. No, it's the same guy. No, it's the same guy. The other actor is younger. There's a younger... Yeah, that's what he means.
JVL00:03:59But he's not that much younger. I mean, it's, you know, you're getting a guy who is still in college or has just graduated from college. He's only a couple years younger temporarily from where we are. Right. Yeah. You know, and Kareem is such a fascinating figure for lots of different ways. Lots of reasons. He's really smart. Well, I wonder...
Vic00:04:21Did you like JVL, by the way? Did you like JVL when, you know, and rookies have to do this, right, where he has to do he has to get him his newspaper and his freshly squeezed orange juice. And then he said, well, I give you your paper. And he goes, that's not a newspaper. Referring to the L.A. Times.
JVL00:04:36The L.A. Times. Yeah. Because he reads the New York Times. And, like, he's deep inside the New York Times A section every morning. And he just views basketball as a job and a job he doesn't really like. Yeah.
Sonny00:04:50What did you guys make of the portrayal of Kareem here? Because I do think... The show is interestingly split on Kareem as a figure beyond basketball, I think. Because there's the moment in the show where he says to Magic, you know, the way people see you behave on the court, that's how they think, you know, all black people are. And you got to... And Magic kind of blows up at him. He's like, me show you respect? You're the one who's not running up and down. And I really... Like, I feel like... I feel like in the world of the show, the show is much more on Magic's side here. Even as I think that the filmmakers, the showrunners are probably more on Kareem's side culturally, if that makes sense. Sure. Does that... Is what I am saying making sense to you?
JVL00:05:48Yeah, I think that's right.
Vic00:05:50Yeah, I was actually not sure how that confrontation was going to go. So this is in... I can't remember if it's the most recent episode. The most recent episode.
Sonny00:06:00Well, the most recent episode as of Thursday, April 7th.
Vic00:06:05That's correct.
Sonny00:06:06By the time you're listening to this on Monday, there will have been another episode. We won't have seen it yet. Yes.
Vic00:06:12But I wasn't sure how that confrontation in that room between the two of them, in the locker room, was going to go. In which direction, if either Magic was going to be listening there and say, okay, yes, or he'll be silent. And think about it. Or he's going to push back. And he certainly pushed back. And then it turned into this big, you know, fight.
JVL00:06:34I love that there's a scene with the two of them in the trainer's room earlier. Where Kareem is getting a rub down. And the trainer is smoking. Yeah. While he's like, yes. With his elbows. In 1979, everybody was smoking everywhere. Yeah. That's right. It's sort of funny to even think about that sort of thing.
Vic00:06:56And where did Tracy Letts come from? Because I feel like he's such a strong actor. And he plays Jack McHenry. He's a playwright. Is that right? Yeah, he's a playwright. Tracy Letts is a playwright. I was wondering, was he acting in his 20s and 30s? Or he just decided to do this?
Sonny00:07:12I don't know. I mean, he's definitely, he's been around for a while as an actor. He's definitely, like, had a very, he's had a more visible last, like, four or five years. Yeah. Basically, ever since. Ford versus Ferrari. Ford versus Ferrari. He was. He was, you know, Ford Jr., John Ford Jr. or whatever. That's right. Son of Ed's a lot. And he was in, of course, Deep Water, which we watched. Yes. A couple weeks back. But I actually didn't even recognize him in this. I, like, I didn't. Yeah, you said that. I did not. I didn't realize it was him until J-Pod texted us. He was like, you know who's good as Tracy Letts? You know who's good in this?
JVL00:07:51You know who's good in this? Is Jason, what's his name? What's his name? The puppeteer guy. Jason Seagal. Jason Seagal. Oh, yeah. Seagal or Seagal. Seagal. So he plays Paul Westhead, who is a legendary figure in basketball. And you're seeing him in his, it is basically in his apprenticeship. Yes. Right? As he's this assistant coach who's being, you know, Jerry West doesn't even talk to and the head coach barely even cares about. And Westhead, I don't know if you, do you guys know much? About Paul Westhead?
Vic00:08:26Only, only from the last like month or two when I caught up and I started reading up on him, but before that, no.
JVL00:08:32So he did something that is almost never been done before. He, so he went to Loyola Marymount. I mean, this guy's coached everywhere. He coached women's basketball. He coached men's basketball, pro college, you know, barnstorming. He's just been, he's just one of these lifers. And he went to Loyola Marymount in the late eighties and he. He had this theory that if he built a team to score like 160 points a game, then they could beat anybody, no matter how much better the other team was, because just the pace would be too much. And he, he fucking damn near did it. You know, he, he had the, he built Loyola Marymount from this nothing into a powerhouse program and they were within. I think just a couple of possessions of going to a final four in 1990. This is the, after they lost their best player, Hank gathers. I don't know if you guys remember Hank gathers died on court and even without him, they, they push UNLV in the 1990 UNLV team, I think is the best college basketball team I've ever seen. They were just an absolute buzzsaw and they are able to beat this insane Loyola. And it was just one of those things where you watch what he was doing. This guy who's thinking of ways to hack the game. It was just fascinating to watch. Yeah.
Vic00:10:01Yeah.
Sonny00:10:02No, Jason plays him really well.
Vic00:10:04Yeah.
Sonny00:10:04But isn't, isn't that, uh, what, uh, Tracy let's is, um, what's his name? The coach, Jack McKinney, Jack McKinney. Isn't that what Jack McKinney is doing? Trying to increase the number of possessions.
JVL00:10:15So he's trying to increase that, but, but what West said, so this is, this is West heads idea that McKinney was implementing and the system was, but what. What, what West had had Loyola Marymount do was fast breaking on every possession, even made baskets, so like the other team scores and you fast break anyway. And wanted the note. He also saw the value in the three pointer before other people did. And just thought, you know, half of our shots should be three pointers, right? You just, it's, it's, you gotta shoot as many threes as you possibly can because the, the return on, on the investment is there. And the little, I I'll go look at box scores while you guys are talking. I think they really were scoring like 140, 160 points a game as like a college team. It was nuts.
Vic00:11:10The, uh, you mentioned UNLV by the way, JVL, Stacey Augman, Larry Johnson, grandma, my team. Did you like the, uh, the, uh, the Jerry Tarkanian stuff? Yeah.
JVL00:11:22Uh, remind me of it.
Vic00:11:24Okay. Well, yeah, they have to go out to Vegas because, uh, Dr. Bus is trying to Jerry bus is trying to convince Tark, uh, to be the coach of the Lakers and Tark is saying, no, I, you know, I get the good treatment here. You know, this is where everything is like the, you know, they bring him stuff. He's the king here, but, uh, the bigger deal is of course, the bigger reasons because of all the, the betting that's going on that he really can't leave Vegas because there's so much at stake and so many important people, if you, if you will, uh, need. He needed him there. And, uh, again, one of the interesting things about it is, you know, you watch this and you want to know what's real, what's not. Um, and, uh, his, cause his buddy, Vic Weiss, who was his, you know, uh, who goes missing and then is found in the movie. Uh, he's found, uh, dead in the show, in the, in the show, he, the show he's found in the trunk and he's shot and, uh, and that really happened, you know, was Jerry
Sonny00:12:21buses card really like stuck to his head. There's no mention about the car.
Vic00:12:24I assume that card was just a little embellishment, but they never solved the murder, but I think we all know who did it. Obviously, I mean, the guy there's 79, 1979, Las Vegas, which is pre, you know, Steve and everything else.
Sonny00:12:40Yeah. It's like the end of casino. It is like the end of basically, uh, no, but the, uh, the, I like, it's one of the things I, I kind of, it's one of the things that I, I don't love about the show is the kind of implication that Jerry bus got this guy killed, um, that like that, like he, you know, he, they, they, they're basically trying to pin this on bus for pushing too hard to get Tarkanian when this guy was like a degenerate gambler who owed money all over town, like it's a problem, the wife, the wife slapping him at the funeral in front of Jeannie and you know, the, the, the, why I like the other
Vic00:13:20thing is, uh, do you, do you like, do you like Adrian Brody as Pat Riley?
Sonny00:13:24Well, this is another thing that I like the, the weirdest thing about this show to me, the weirdest thing about the show to me is how, how much they seem to hate all of the coaches. So I, I think they think they, they meaning the showrunners McKay and, and whoever, so like they're, they're, you know, Jerry West is, is a, is a, is a doofus, you know, who like they're, they're, they're a little sympathetic to him because he, he, you know, panics and thinks he. He can't get it done.
JVL00:13:55McKinney's McKinney's treated as yeah.
Sonny00:13:58McKinney's treated as an asshole. Like West head is, is, is a wilting flower dork. And, and Riley is treated as just a, you know, um, is again, just as a dork. Like I, like I, I'm, I, I, I, it annoys me a little bit that, that angle of it.
Vic00:14:20Uh, JVL, did you have Pat Riley thoughts? I was surprised. Because in my mind, you know, Pat Riley immediately came on in the eighties when, in fact, there's this kind of interregnum between at the end of Jerry West's time. And there's a short brief one. And you would think that like, well, with Jack McKinney, obviously what happens to him as we see in the last episode, the biking accident, which also also really happened. And then Paul West takes over and then you would think, oh, well, if he takes them to a championship, then they're probably going to keep them on, you know, for several seasons. But that didn't happen as well.
Sonny00:14:51No, he, he was out immediately. Yeah.
Vic00:14:53And then, and so. And so it has me sort of wanting to find out more about it. But, but I, I find it interesting in how.
Sonny00:15:00You know, there is a book. Yeah, I know.
Vic00:15:03So I've heard. There's a book you can read. Well, you know, why book when you can watch? That's what I say.
JVL00:15:08The book doesn't do as well in the quadrants.
Vic00:15:10No, I'll tell you. Yeah. You know, you have to imagine it.
Sonny00:15:13Six years from now. I will say. Before you do a bonus show on Jeff Perlman show times.
Vic00:15:18Years from now. I do want to say this because I don't want to forget it.
JVL00:15:24Van Nuys High School in 1979 must have been amazing.
Vic00:15:28The girl who plays Paula Abdul. Okay. I don't know who she is. I assume she's not a famous actress, but I love her ebullience. Ebullience is no other way to say it. Except for Sonny was going to straight up.
JVL00:15:44Yeah.
Vic00:15:45Yeah. A little bit much. Okay. When they say, oh, it's her. I knew it was her. You don't have to go over that. You know, it's a very Adam McKay thing. Beth was actually love that.
JVL00:15:54That part of the directing, because it's not to Adam McKay. Yeah.
Sonny00:15:59Right. I think it's done. Beth was very excited when Paula Abdul showed up. She was like, I bet that's Paula Abdul. Absolutely.
Vic00:16:08But she's so bubbly. And she's like, yeah, I'll do it. And she's like, oh, I just want to hug her. I just want to hug her.
JVL00:16:15That's what I was going to say. What did you just think of me that look, Sonny? Totally drunk on American Idol. I thought it was great.
Vic00:16:23You are so awesome. Okay. So that's all I have. Do you have any other thoughts on these shows? Except for, I mean, again, I'm looking forward to.
Sonny00:16:35JBL, do you think it's going? Do you think it's dragging on too long? They're clearly just doing this first season. They just announced it's going to be a season two.
JVL00:16:41There's going to be a season. It's way too long. It's going to be 10 years.
Sonny00:16:4510 years of winning time.
Vic00:16:47Right. Because think about it.
JVL00:16:48The entire season should have been five episodes.
Vic00:16:50When are we going to get to him from the beginning of the first episode where he gets the AIDS diagnosis?
Sonny00:16:5510 years from now.
Vic00:16:56That's a long time from where we are now. 91. Unless they do montage of victories. 10 seasons. Montage of victories.
JVL00:17:02So here is a thing which I haven't been thinking about since the first episode. Which do you think is worth more today? The Los Angeles Lakers franchise or the Chrysler building?
Vic00:17:19No.
Sonny00:17:19Because Jerry Buss owns the Chrysler building.
JVL00:17:23Yeah. Which is one of his things early on.
Sonny00:17:26I think he sells it to get the money for the Lakers, right? Yeah. I thought to myself, I don't know that that's a great trade in terms of
JVL00:17:36investment for value. I mean, you look at the value of, like, big towers in Manhattan. Oh, sure.
Vic00:17:43Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:17:45I think it's probably more than what a, probably worth more than the Lakers franchise. Yeah. No?
Vic00:17:53That's one of the things they discuss in, well, in the show. I don't know. That he can't get enough. It's never enough for him.
Sonny00:18:00I'm sure we could look this up, but I, I don't know. Sports franchises are incredibly valuable. I mean, the Lakers are probably worth $2 billion.
JVL00:18:12Yeah, sure. But a tower in Manhattan is worth.
Sonny00:18:17But, I mean, how does that actually, like, how does the ownership actually work? Like, does he own, like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think that it does not feel to me that that is quite the same thing. Cause I don't think it would just be, you know, I'm one guy with the Chrysler building. I want to send, sell it to you for $10 billion. I like, but maybe it is. I don't know.
JVL00:18:37I'm pretty sure that's how it works. Honestly.
Sonny00:18:41Are we, are we in a, uh, uh, an agreement? Somebody who has money, explain this to us. Yes. Dan. Yes. Dan, tell us.
Vic00:18:49Tell us how it works. Um, the other thing that I was thinking about when I'm watching, because you were talking about the, watching the basketball games and the way they're filmed. It's not like, I mean, you think about Hoosiers, you know, where you're seeing a whole game go on and here there's a lot of quick shots and you, you know, you're not obvious and, and, and the last episode that we just saw, it's all truncated, right? I mean, in terms of the, the victories and they get, you know, nine wins in a row, et cetera, but in general, I imagine it's easier to teach an athlete. How to act than an actor to be a better player.
JVL00:19:23Yes. You know, so I, I'm not even saying we need to see game play, but everything else is done so inventively and creatively.
Vic00:19:32Yeah.
JVL00:19:33There must be creative ways to shoot and even to, you know, the stupid, like 3d view that we get on, you know, replay now where the, you know, they have cameras all around the stadium, so they'll like freeze a moment and then swing the camera. All of it. There must be ways. To do stuff like that, just to explain to people like the geometry of how fast breaks work, right?
Vic00:20:01Right.
JVL00:20:01But I could benefit or to explain what it is. One of the, you know, magic Johnson's great gift was his court sense. Well, this, I mean, the show is, there are ways to show that on screen that don't involve like having the actor make magic Johnson style passes, right? I mean, the, the. There are ways to like freeze a thing and then draw arrows and right. You can do trick. Right.
Vic00:20:28There was a weird, you know what it was? There was a weird animation sequence that they used. Yeah, they did that.
Sonny00:20:34Yeah. I, I think the show is aggressively uninterested in basketball, basketball as a, as a subject, I mean, it's just not versus, and that is, that's, I think that's part of the reason why I get vaguely annoyed by the dismissiveness towards the coaches because they're the it's, it's treated as like a bit of a
JVL00:20:50way coaches are actual. Cultural figures. Yeah. There, I mean, Pat Riley sort of becomes a cultural figure. Um, but for the most part, they are figures only within the culture of basketball and this series is not at all interested in the culture of basketball.
Sonny00:21:06Yeah. Right.
JVL00:21:08Um, I, God bless John C. Riley. Oh yeah. No, it's just so great.
Vic00:21:15We discussed this before we discussed this in a previous episode, but it really is so apparent how much better fit he is than it would have been for Will Ferrell. Yeah.
JVL00:21:23A hundred percent. And you know, the, the, the episode, the most recent episode succeeds, even though he's barely on screen, which surprises me because I, you know, for the first few episodes, but every minute he's not on screen is a wasted minute. I wanted more and more of them, but, uh, yeah, he's great. So what do you think of Ginny bus? Do you like Ginny bus? You're talking about Sally field? Oh, no, no, no. You're talking about the question for Vic. Yes.
Vic00:21:49Yeah.
JVL00:21:49For you, Victorino.
Vic00:21:50I mean, they're, they're, they're creating stuff. You're intrigued, right? I mean, again, in my category of intrigued, although, you know, uh, who did I mention before? What's her name? Who is the, uh, the older woman, which is the one I'm found intriguing. Yeah. Gabby, uh, is it Hoffman?
JVL00:22:07Yeah. Gabby, Gabby Hoffman. Yeah.
Vic00:22:09Very intriguing. I find they're all, now my current, my current intrigue is, uh, Paula Abdul, the character plays her.
Sonny00:22:16You've moved on.
Vic00:22:17I've moved on to Paula. You've moved on to the high school senior. And I love, she was not, no, she was their coach. She was their coach and just no, she's a senior at the high school. She was their coach. She was their core choreographer. I got to go.
Sonny00:22:34I'm sure it's fine.
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