Episode 4 is here! Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (Season 2) is such a fascinating time capsule of a show. Even if basketball as a game is not that prevalent in India, it is perhaps no surprise that players are given far more importance. Player empowerment is the primary tactic, and whether that tactic is good or bad is irrelevant. However, as Winning Time shows, that push or pull between player empowerment and coach empowerment is exactly what is causing the division in the locker room, and then again, when the player is a unicorn of a talent like Magic Johnson, the nuances become far more complicated.
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (Season 2) Episode 4 Recap:
Episode 4 – The New World
Jason Segel and the writers of Winning Time are truly showing Paul Westhead in the worst light here. From the beginning itself, in an exhibition pre-season game where Westhead is running the Lakers team ragged or in an advertisement of Sports Illustrated’s ‘81 issue where the Lakers are shown in a classroom with the coach, Riley’s rhetorical 4th-wall-breaking inquiry (“Good fucking question”) encapsulates the entire issue of why the Laker drama is becoming more and more of a hassle to deal with.
Whether Magic is treated as the second coming of basketball by everyone else is a problem for the viewers as well because the viewers, too, want to remember what it is like to watch basketball viewed through a cinematic lens. And thus, Westhead, even from a meta-narrative standpoint, is becoming an antagonistic force. Jason Segel is very clearly showing Westhead as the man so much in love with his own plan that he fails to see the forest for the trees. But even then, the hierarchies that are supposed to be in charge are supposedly in charge, so any significant change is bound to create a dustup. Like the revelation of the lifetime contract offered to Magic Johnson by Jerry Buss, revealed in a press conference by Red Auerbach in order to dissuade and distract the Lakers. And dissuaded they were, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar almost bemoaned how a basketball team is supposed to be a family, and when the boss singles out his favorite child, it is time to question the validity of everyone else’s presence. It further exacerbates the situation because that lifetime contract is rewarded to Magic Johnson – a player just coming off a knee injury, and not all the other players who “scrape and fight every day,” as voiced by Cooper to a distraught Johnson.
The antagonism towards Westhead increases further because his “system” is one that clearly only he and his assistant Mike understand. Everyone else, including Pat and Jerry West, is having a hard time trying to understand how conforming to the “system” is actually helping. And it doesn’t help that Westhead is openly antagonizing West by cheekily including that “hippie” in the final team, even though we later see him benched for most of the season. His huffy requests are forced to be listened to by the real boss, Buss, because he is dumping a lot of money on this team to ensure that it plays up to speed and he can hit Auerbach’s face with eggs; otherwise, Westhead is out of a job. Westhead also has to contend with the Indiana Pacers and his former mentor, Jack McKinney, who is coaching them. Their meeting at a diner and later their court meetup are fraught with tension, more on Westhead’s part. Not only because Westhead knows he lucked into this job but also because at the game, he sees how the Lakers meet with their old coach, the love and respect McKinney still commands, which Westhead is trying to but failing and yet still holding onto stubbornly with his system, which McKinney almost threatens to “expose,” and almost does, with the Lakers barely managing to squeak by a point.
And that’s how the Lakers mostly manage to notch up wins in their win column—either squeaking by barely or making a respectful showing. And for the most part, barring a few people (Jerry West, Magic Johnson, and Pat Riley), the majority of the Laker squad is happy. Jerry Buss, especially, is happier because his relationship with his girlfriend Honey is moving steadily enough that he is finally ready to ask for her hand in marriage, but he finds a dissenter in her daughter Jeannie, who apparently thinks that being with Honey is making her father lose her edge. Pat almost throws his neck out because of the stress of trying to ensure Paul Westhead maintaining an even keel throughout the season and failing miserably at it. He has even resumed smoking, which finally catches Wessthead’s eye.
As for Magic Johnson, asking him to play by someone else’s style and not “free-floating basketball”, which made him win the rookie championship, is already a lot. Now, having to prove himself every game, considering the lifetime contract being offered to him, is almost like a noose around his neck. And the favoritism of Johnson by Buss is sticking like a craw for Westhead as well, which is almost like a harbinger for what’s to come in basketball — the player empowerment of it all. Thus, Magic Johnson has to contend with staying at the “spots” afforded by Westhead, according to “The System,” which basically means giving the passes to Kareem for the inevitable skyhook to get to the finish line. Bruised ego for Magic Johnson, yes, but then again, if you are a player who has been awarded a lifetime Laker contract and is being treated like every other point guard in the game, wouldn’t your ego be bruised as well?
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (Season 2) Episode 4 Ending Explained:
The tension between Johnson and Westhead has been rising to a fever pitch. It was noticeable even within games, and kudos to the talent of the Laker team that they were able to squeak out wins even in challenging situations behind the scenes. But when the final dustup occurs between Westhead and Johnson, it is a noticeable one. It leads to a confrontation between the two of them in a clothes locker away from the media, with Johnson uncharacteristically silent and listening to Westhead talk about the hierarchy in the team before walking away. With that, not only are the writers dropping the gauntlet on Westhead’s continuation in the series (“The almond tree bears its fruit in silence” —really, Paul?), but when asked by the media about his future, Johnson announces that he is not happy with the current iteration of the Lakers and asks to be traded publicly. Buss had done a good job of deflecting Johnson’s pleas to take a decision directly, but this definitely will force Buss’s hand.
