Winning Time was sensitive to his father’s passing.
Most of the time, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty concentrates mostly on Lake Tahoe. But without the Boston Celtics, the Showtime Lakers’ dynasty of the 1980s would not have existed. The dialogue-heavy exchanges between Lakers owner Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly) and Celtics coach Red Auerbach (Michael Chiklis) are among the best parts in the program. The most recent episode of Winning Time explores a trauma that permanently changed Celtics player Larry Bird (Sean Patrick Small), offering the most in-depth look yet into the lives of a figure not affiliated with the Lakers organization.
Bird’s only spoken words in the first 1.5 seasons of Winning Time have been mocking Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) both mentally and on the court. Bird’s beady eyes seemed to be penetrating the national TV audience as the Boston Celtics celebrated winning the 1981 NBA Finals, the year after the Lakers won, in order to precisely hit Johnson where it hurt.
Johnson was so viscerally disgusted that it seemed as though the smoke from Bird’s celebratory cigar was blowing into his face through his TV screen. The show presents Bird as an emotionless robot created by the basketball gods with the sole purpose of ripping out hearts and grabbing buckets. He was, in fact, a guy of flesh and bones with a heart warped by a dysfunctional household.
In West Baden Springs, Indiana, bird was born to Georgia and Claude Joseph “Joe” Bird. Larry was motivated to play basketball by his family’s years of poverty and desire to improve their lot in life. Although his mother hasn’t yet made an appearance on the show, Larry has documented throughout the years the sacrifices and various occupations his mother made in order to support him and his siblings. After making his winning time debut, Joe (Mac Brandt), his father, became a major character in one of the most depressing storylines in the show’s history by the end of the episode.
