Winning Time Premiere Recap: Is the Magic Over Already for the Lakers?
Magic Johnson and the L.A. Lakers were riding high last season on HBO’s basketball drama Winning Time, winning the NBA title in Magic’s first pro season. But as Season 2 opens, they’re learning it’s not so easy staying on top.
Sunday’s premiere opens with a jump ahead to the 1984 NBA Finals, with the Lakers taking on their hated rivals the Boston Celtics. The Lakers manage to win Game 1 in Boston in front of a very hostile crowd; the fans jeer and throw things at them as they run off the court. On the team bus, Pat Riley reminds the team that they’ve won titles before, but “none of it meant s—t, because it wasn’t against them.” But we then hop back to the summer of 1980, with the Lakers basking in their championship run. Magic’s face is on billboards everywhere… but he’s also getting slapped with a paternity claim by a pregnant woman who says he fathered her child. (His lawyers want to pay the woman off to buy her silence.) Plus, he’s trying to reconnect with his hometown girlfriend Cookie, but she’s ignoring his calls and dating a new guy.
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Lakers head coach Paul Westhead wants to add some innovative wrinkles to their playbook, and Magic wants an aging Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to take a step back to accommodate their new fast-break style… but no one wants to tell that to a surly Kareem. In the front office, owner Jerry Buss wants to give the players big raises to get ahead of the free agency curve, and he also asks daughter Jeannie and her brothers to move into his mansion with him: “We’re building an empire, but it’s not gonna mean a goddamn thing if we don’t have each other.” At training camp, Kareem has a hard time keeping up with Magic’s run-and-gun style, but when Magic suggests they practice without him, he reenters the game with a newfound determination, sprinting back to block Magic’s dunk attempt. It gets chippy, with lots of shoves and elbows, and when Kareem hits the floor to grab a loose ball, he smacks his face on the ground, putting an early end to practice.
Jerry West balks at the big contracts Buss wants to offer the players, but Buss just tells him if they need more money, he’ll spend more money. To pay for it, he buys Jeannie a pro tennis franchise and a soccer team and race horses for his sons, taking out a second mortgage and using the new assets’ value as credit to pay for the new contracts. As the season begins, the Lakers get off to a hot start, and we learn that Magic is sleeping with one of his lawyers — and she’s married, by the way. Kareem leaves the team as his wife gives birth, and when he returns, he agrees with Magic that they should keep the offense up-tempo. But when they take the court, Magic twists his knee, collapsing to the floor. It’s a severe injury; team doctors say he won’t even be able to walk again for three months.
In Magic’s absence, Westhead tries to sell the team on his new system called, um, “The System” where the aim is to shoot early and often before the other team’s defense can get set. (Basically, the NBA today.) The team scoffs at it, though, and Kareem is insulted by the assumption that he’s too old to carry the team. A despondent Magic goes back home to Lansing — after his knee talks to him (!) and warns him about all the great players whose careers were derailed by injury — as his lawyers work to settle his paternity dispute. The pregnant girl’s dad isn’t happy, and neither are Magic’s parents. Magic was once endorsing Buicks, but now that he’s hurt, his lawyer can only get him a deal with a local Datsun dealership.
The Lakers are losing without Magic, and the fans are getting restless. Jerry Buss plays a friendly game of Monopoly with his kids, but it turns ugly when he prods his sons to play with a “killer instinct,” eventually calling them dumb and lazy. He later apologizes to Jeannie… but he doesn’t think she’s dumb and lazy. Magic’s mom pays a visit to Cookie, acknowledging Magic’s flaws but insisting that he just needs the love of a good woman. (Magic’s dad had a wandering eye, too.) So the next time Magic calls Cookie, she finally answers. He vows to do whatever it takes to win her back — and she challenges him to figure out what that is, exactly.
Magic visits the mother of his child at the hospital following the birth, and once Westhead convinces the Lakers that “team beats stars, every time,” they start a new winning streak while Magic gets his leg cast off. He’ll even be back before the playoffs start! Magic’s dad informs his son’s business manager that they settled the paternity dispute with the mother’s family on their own — and orders him off his porch. Magic gets back on the practice court, and he’s laboring out there, but he’s trying. Soon, he shows up at a Laker game while his teammates are playing, and the crowd cheers when they see him walk out… but the team gets distracted and loses its focus, and their opponents, Larry Bird and the Celtics, take advantage. Bird taunts Magic to sit back and watch the show — and we can’t wait to watch these two go head-to-head.
It’s time for the fan vote: Give the premiere a grade in our poll, and then dribble down to the comments to share your take.
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