Trailer For HBO Max's "Winning Time" Gives Us Laker Fever All Over Again!

Hi guys, it's you’re favorite Laker girl! And no, I’m not one of the cheerleaders… Let’s just say THOSE Laker Girls are much more charming than me. I’m just a REALLY big fan, and speaking of the Laker Girls, they wouldn’t exist – and I probably wouldn’t even care about the franchise at all – without Jerry Buss and all that he did to make the organization as successful and beloved as it is today. HBO’s upcoming drama "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" addresses all of this and more, and after watching the trailer for it, I have a lot to say. As usual. Some things never change!

You know, as a relatively young fan – I’m 24, basically just out the womb – it’s easy to forget just how deep the success of the Los Angeles Lakers runs. Of course, before LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O’Neal, there were George Mikan, Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Magic Johnson, and so on and so forth. This series will focus on the ‘80s boys – Johnson, Abdul-Jabaar, Worthy, Kurt Rambis, Byron Scott, and company, along with famed Lakers coach and current Miami Heat President Pat Riley and the man largely credited for the Lakers’ unrivaled success at that time, the aforementioned former team owner Jerry Buss.

There’s plenty to be excited about here, and not all of it revolves around the basketball. Sure, it’ll be fun to relive the no-look passes, skyhooks, fast breaks, and dunks, but I’m more interested to learn about all that went into making the Lakers as glamorous and esteemed as they are today. How were Buss, Riley, and other Lakers personnel able to draft and build such winning teams, for example? How did Buss make home games club-like celebrity hubs? How did the Laker Girls come to be, and how much fun was it to be around the music, cheerleaders, high-flying athletics, and more during this time? Under Buss’s tutelage, sports and entertainment become one and the same, and I can’t wait to see what that looked like back when the Lakers called The Forum home. And, oh yeah, there were some badass women who were key in bringing Showtime to life too, and who doesn’t love a good trailblazing storyline?

As a Laker fan guilty of “sweating the small stuff” (and maybe that’s an understatement), I feel justified in saying that we L.A. faithful tend to be guilty of valuing winning above all else, freaking out over a Tuesday loss in January that in the grand scheme of a season means little to nothing. Is that mindset, that attitude, that perspective, informed by what Buss and others so brilliantly concocted back when Converse was the basketball shoe of choice? Probably. But as a member of Laker Nation, I wouldn’t have it any other way. And to be able to actually see and hear about how the franchise took the leap from local favorite to international sensation will be a major treat for me and all of my purple & gold cohorts.

Of course, the awesome cast is just the cherry on top. The names – including John C. Reilly, Sally Field, Adrien Brody, and Jason Segel – are incredibly intriguing, to say the least. And I’m particularly looking forward to seeing Quincy Isaiah make his debut as Johnson. I just love basketball, okay? Simple as that. Just writing about it is giving me goosebumps. In fact, I’m so pumped I can also stop thinking about how the Lakers are basically playing .500 ball. See? Told you I have a winning problem!

So, here’s to the Los Angeles Lakers and the Hollywood glitziness of it all. I hope the series lives up to the hype, but regardless, I’m sure it’ll be tons of fun! Let’s go Lakers!