The Irony Of Winning Time’s Final Episode After Cancellation

The abrupt ending of HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is highly ironic considering how the series actually ended. Winning Time was expected to continue its dramatized retelling of the 1980s Showtime Lakers era after chronicling its earliest days between 1979 and 1984. After Jerry Buss took over the team in 1979, he was able to instill innovative brand and content strategies that essentially modernized the NBA as an entertainment platform, focused on the entire fan experience rather than simply the basketball alone. Buss’s success still relied on the quality of his Lakers team and he was equally invested in building his franchise around the talented Earvin “Magic” Johnson.