The story of one of the greatest sports dynasties of all time: “Lakers: time to win”

In 2020, the documentary The Last Dance was released, a series that told the last season of the Chicago Bulls and the reign of Michael Jordan. In parallel, another project linked to the NBA was being put together: the history of the golden decade of the Los Angeles Lakers. The name of this fiction series ended up being Lakers: Time to Win (Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty) and was released two years later than the Chicago Bulls documentary, on HBO Max.

The series tells how the Los Angeles Lakers explosively transformed into one of the most important dynasties in the sport in the 1980s, and how its fame managed to transcend the whole world.

A golden age that came to an end, as the series astutely announces at the beginning. But what he mainly tells is the journey taken by businessman Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly), who decides to buy the mediocre Lakers and play it for a rookie named Earvin Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah).

There is the tormented and never happy coach Jerry West (Jason Clarke) and the one responsible for closing the crazy numbers of the adventure, Clarie Rothman (Gaby Hoffmann). In addition to the stars of basketball and entertainment, there are also, little by little, those who will become great figures in the sport, in front of and behind the cameras. To see a failed Pat Riley (Adrien Brody) and in the last few days to be introduced is very shocking.

The series is based on the book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s written by Jeff Pearlman, author specializing in sports issues. The creators of the series are Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht, but the artistic result seems to have fallen to Adam McKay, the executive producer and director of the pilot episode.

Famous for his comedies such as Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2008), Step Brothers (2008) and Anchorman 2 (2013), McKay became a political director in recent years with The Big Short (2015), Vice (2018) and Don't Look Up (2021). It is precisely the style of these last three films that appears even more intensely in the Lakers: time to win.

The aesthetics of the series are particularly remarkable, a bit to the use that McKay has been working on for years. The accelerated editing and the multiplicity of formats give a particular texture to the story. Emulating the supports of the eighties, the transition from Super 8 to VHS, the video clip and advertising, the whole story jumps frantically to show the speed of that time and the rise of the game form that was called Showtime.

As an extra aesthetic risk, we must add the significant resource of the characters speaking to the camera. Not one but many, which breaks the fourth wall much more than is usually done. It is a major challenge, because the viewer enters and leaves the drama, distances himself and connects alternately. The frenetic madness of success, money and victory are as much as the ego of all the participants: the series is not content with explaining through the script, but also with the very way in which it is filmed. Take it or leave it, it's not for everyone.

Lakers: Time to Win has poetic licenses, correctly warned at the beginning so that no one claims some alterations of the real story. The handful of main characters he chooses to portray form an interesting network that describes all aspects, sports and economic, of basketball. But it also accompanies the moment when a revolution came to the sport and a concept of spectacle was born that would end up taking over the NBA, and from there it expanded into other sports.

The HBO Max series is, in its own way, a look at the world of show business. A look at power, the struggle of egos, the ruthless competition.

Interestingly Lakers: time to win has brought an unexpected negative consequence. After 25 years of working together and having a great friendship, producer and director McKay fell out with Will Ferrell.

The actor dreamed of playing Jerry Buss in the series and — at least, by word — McKay had approved his role when everything was just a project. But then he changed his mind and chose a friend of both of them, Reilly. McKay did not tell Ferrell, who decided to break society and friendship. Although McKay initially thought it was something temporary, he later admitted that he believed that the actor would never speak to him again.

Beyond the fact that it may not be a production for everyone or is visually overwhelming, sport is still a huge source of inspiration to talk about different topics. McKay has his own agenda and interests and, in his own way and with varied results, is able to work several layers in the same story. Lakers: Time to Win is another series that starts from the world of basketball and at the same time manages to go further. Surely it won't be the last.

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