With The Success Of HBO's Winning Time Here Are 3 Teams I Think Would Make Great TV Shows
I like Winning Time. I don't think it's the best TV Show of all time but each week I am entertained with the episodes. I also always like a show that I know the basis of the story but can still learn about the details. Woodstock is that for me. I'm fascinated by it. I know the story of it (peace love an unreal music lineup) but the intricacies of the weekend are the real story. Was it as glorious as it's depicted or does it get romanticized over the years? That debate of facts fascinates me.
With Winning Time, I obviously wasn't alive to watch Magic and Kareem play but being a hoops head i obviously know who they are. Same with Pat Riley making his bones, and Jerry Buss being iconic. I learned about Paul Westhead getting squeezed out as Head Coach from the Guru of Go 30 for 30. Little details like that are the most fascinating to me. The same with Magic Johnson demanding a trade etc. Each week I feel like I learn something new. I like those kind of shows.
With that in mind ... here's 3 teams I think would make for a fascinating television series.
1. The 86 Mets
This is likely a homer pick having grown up on this team and hearing literally legendary stories about them but this would be a terrific TV Show. There's been documentaries on them and a terrific book "The Bad Guys Won" by Jeff Pearlman (who also wrote "Showtime", which is the book that Winning Time is based on).
The pitch for this TV show is basically "the most talented team in the league meets cocaine and fights." The Mets were loaded with talent but had absolute lunatics on the team. All you need to know about this team is the first time Kevin Mitchell met Daryl Strawberry he punched him in the face at a pickup basketball game. That same Kevin Mitchell was naked in the clubhouse during Game 6 booking a flight home when they needed him to pinch hit. He ran up from the clubhouse and remembered that the pitcher for The Red Sox was a roommate of his in the minor leagues, and tipped him off how he would pitch to Mitchell. Mitchell got a hit and kept the rally going. Evil geniuses to a degree.
They trashed a plan, they got in fist fights, and they beat everyones ass on the field. Truly a looney bin of a team. I think it would be a terrific 1 season mini series especially if they really leaned into the R rating vibes.
2. 2000-2004 Lakers
Hey if don't work ...don't break it. Or if it ain't breaking, don't break it more. Or something to that degree. Either way ... with Winning Time's success ... you almost have to go back to the well with The Lakers, and no story is more compelling than The 2000-2004 Lakers with Shaq and Kobe. I get the element that in order for this show to work it would need to be honest, and that with Kobe passing so recently it might not be in the best taste to give any indication you are disrespecting his legacy, but this is a story of a team that is made for television. LA, stars, Hollywood, drama, and everything in between.
3. 2006-2008 Florida Gators but actually do it the right way
I'm not breaking any news here folks. Swamp Kings sucked. Make this scripted TV, embellish the scenes a little bit, make Tebow the villian … hell even get wacky and throw in a theory that Tebow's whole holier than now act was a front and a facade. Gimme everything. This Florida team was MADE FOR TV and they fucked it up. Do the right thing.