TV Talk: HBO’s winning ‘Winning Time’ is a sports show about business

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

More a business-of-sports show than a sports show, “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” (9 p.m. Sunday on HBO and HBO Max) giddily explores the personalities involved in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 1980s heyday, beginning with Jerry Bus (John C. Reilly), who is about to buy the Lakers as the series begins, and Earvin “Magic” Johnson (Quincy Isaiah), who is about to join the team.

Perhaps what is most notable and welcome about “Winning Time” is its sheer sense of fun. In an era of darkly-lit, super-serious, joyless prestige dramas, “Winning Time” goes the opposite direction, putting an emphasis on entertainment even as it deals with issues of race, class and gender politics.

Director Adam McKay (“Don’t Look Up”) brings a light, sun-dappled, bouncy tone to “Winning Time” that’s complemented by many of the characters breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to viewers watching. It seems unnecessary, but all the characters who do this come off as coolly confident in their confiding, so it’s unobjectionable.

Gabby Hoffmann, in particular, makes a positive first impression as Claire Rothman, the lone female executive in the Lakers’ front office.

And then there’s Reilly, whose “I’m-having-a-blast” vibe is infectious. As the showman who wants to turn athletics into sports entertainment, Reilly delivers a magnetic performance as a businessman on the edge. For Bus, planning is an incidental inconvenience. He may not have the money he needs, but he figures he can glad-hand his way into getting it even though that may not sit right with his mother (Sally Field, having a ball), who watches the books.

While too many dramas today take viewers for granted with self-indulgent, drawn-out storytelling, through its first four episodes, “Winning Time” smartly builds each episode to a cliffhanger crescendo that, even with full, one-hour running times, leaves viewers wanting more.

In a mid-January HBO press conference during the 2022 Television Critics Association virtual winter press tour, Reilly said playing Oliver Hardy in the 2018 film “Ollie Hardy” helped prepare him for his direct address to the camera in “Winning Time.”

“It was almost like you kinda had to decide some qualities for your scene partner, the camera,” Reilly said. “Normally, when you’re acting with an actor, you can just see what they’re giving off, but when you’re looking into the camera, (there’s) no one that you’re talking to. You’re kind of talking to everyone. So I tried to be as specific and as intimate as I could be to build that relationship from episode to episode so that you really felt comfortable when I was talking to you and lead the way through this story here and there.”

Reilly said breaking the fourth wall creates a “chaotic, wonderful energy” in the show.

“It’s a way to get the audience on your side, too,” Reilly added. “You kinda include them directly, which most things don’t.”

Executive producer Rodney Barnes said “Winning Time” goes beyond the game to get to the humanity of the characters.

“We don’t just show them as basketball players,” Barnes said. “We show them as human beings.”

That’s especially true of Bus, who is divorced and not shy about dating.

“We definitely wanted to be truthful about that part of it, but I think you’ll agree when you see the whole series that that’s just one small facet of Jerry’s life,” Reilly said. “The truth is it’s one of the greatest American stories I’ve ever come across. What he did, where he came from in Wyoming, and where he ended up here in Los Angeles, can only happen in this country.”