Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

[Magic and the Lakers] transformed sports in the public’s eye from just a game into show business. You’ll see how in this colorful, explosive, thoroughly entertaining series.

On the whole though, Winning Time isn’t heavy or preachy. It mostly shifts between affectionate, wonky, and playfully ironic.

Perhaps what is most notable and welcome about “Winning Time” is its sheer sense of fun. ... While too many dramas today take viewers for granted with self-indulgent, drawn-out storytelling, through its first four episodes, “Winning Time” smartly builds each episode to a cliffhanger crescendo that, even with full, one-hour running times, leaves viewers wanting more.

For all the off-the-court shenanigans, “Winning Time” is primarily about the basketball, and the writers display a keen knowledge of the game whenever McKinney, West, Westhead, Riley, et al., are strategizing. As for practice and game sequences, the actors are convincing enough, with considerable assists from camera angles that make them appear NBA-sized and slick editing that no doubt compensated for shortcomings.

Like gawking fans, “Winning Time” is often content to just watch the Lakers chase titles we already know they’ll win. But once it starts considering all “the happy” that’s sacrificed along the way, those stakes make for a game worth watching.

Winning Time is now a glitzy scroll down a Wikipedia page, lobbing important details at the viewer without much care for nuance. .... What’s frustrating about Winning Time is that it doesn’t offer much more than that potted stereotype—something that’s true of almost every character around Johnson and Kareem.

So awful is Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty that this is the conclusion of my review, and I’ve barely mentioned that its gameplay action is monotonous and phony (it’s all alley-oops and fancy passes), its inter-squad squabbling is pedestrian, and its season-long narrative is distended to such a laughable degree that, after eight episodes, it finishes without even getting to the 1980 NBA Playoffs!

The series has some good redeeming qualities, namely the performances by John C. Reilly as Dr. Jerry Buss and Jason Clarke as Jerry West. Quincy Isaiah, as Magic, is pretty good, too. The 1st episode was better than the 2nd. The tone of the series is lightweight, similar to the tone of "Don't Look Up," almost as if they are lampooning the story. There are some good scenes in between its deliberate pace. I'm looking forward to episodes 3 and 4.

First half of it was very interesting and I really enjoyed it, but towards the second part it felt like some episodes were too long and got a bit boring. Overall it was good, but I think they tried to get it to 10 episodes, while it could have been 8. Still suggest to watch it for everyone.

John C. Reilly leads this cast as Jerry Buss, the self-assured owner of the Los Angeles Lakers in the 80s. It also follows the rise of Magic Johnson. Adam McKay (Don't Look Up) created this series and it's crammed with his hallmark style: Frantic edits, characters addressing the camera and graphics to explain stuff. His decision to use multiple film stocks is distracting, but the biggest turn off is the annoyingly aggressive attitude that pervades the series. Fans of the sport may enjoy, but it's too unfocused and aggressive for others to appreciate.