Entertainment

‘Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers’ plays too much like a licensed product

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2 years ago

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Not solely does Lakers CEO Jeanie Buss function an government producer of “Legacy,” however all the youngsters of late proprietor Jerry Buss sit for interviews, together with an intensive roster of the workforce’s former gamers, coaches and high-profile opponents.
Even so, director Antoine Fuqua (whose documentary credit embody the sports-related “What’s My Title: Muhammad Ali”) has tipped the scales too closely towards Jerry Buss and his willpower to show the NBA’s showiest franchise right into a household enterprise. The result’s a sequence peppered with highlights however that performs like an excessive amount of of a licensed product, laden with Buss household reminiscing.

In some respects, the entire train comes throughout as an prolonged response to “Successful Time,” in search of to reclaim the workforce’s narrative after that present’s exaggerated portrait of key Lakers gamers and personnel, which too typically bordered on parody.

Jerry West, for instance, who publicly criticized the HBO present, will get to calmly and brazenly talk about how demanding he was as a coach, saying of the gamers, “I felt sorry for them having to play for me,” whereas others have fun his good eye for figuring out expertise in his government capability.
Fuqua additionally contextualizes “Legacy” within the broader sociological context of Los Angeles, a metropolis of various communities pulled collectively by its collective love of the Lakers and Dodgers — a minimum of, when the groups are successful. From that perspective, the sequence has a great deal in widespread with final 12 months’s ESPN documentary “As soon as Upon a Time in Queens,” dedicated to the Mets and their relationship with New York.

Nonetheless, a manufacturing already enamored with personalities at instances races by way of the precise basketball, to the purpose the place if you happen to blink twice through the portion dedicated to the ’80s groups, you may miss one other championship.

What’s left, then, are the bits and items: How Buss turned the Discussion board, the place the Lakers performed, into the most popular night time spot in a city of stars; the Lakers Women and different improvements that fellow house owners rushed to repeat, comparable to Buss jacking up the value of ground seats from $10.50 to $65; and Magic Johnson’s unprecedented 25-year contract, prompting teammate Jamaal Wilkes and the remainder of the squad to ask of Johnson’s shut ties to the proprietor, “Is he considered one of us, or considered one of them?”

“Legacy” shoots a a lot greater proportion when the topic turns to basketball, with Julius Erving, a.ok.a. Dr. J, praising Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as “the best of all time,” and Celtics star Larry Hen expressing the same sense of awe, saying he had hoped his brother noticed him standing on the courtroom close to the Lakers massive man.

Six of the ten episodes have been made out there, sufficient to get by way of the Lakers’ down years after Abdul-Jabbar retired and Johnson’s HIV prognosis, and into the signing of Shaquille O’Neal and drafting of teenybopper sensation Kobe Bryant, triggering a title-winning resurgence.

Even then, there’s as a lot curiosity, seemingly, in coach Phil Jackson’s private relationship with Jeanie Buss. Nor might the filmmakers resist including the compulsory Hollywood pizzazz to the proceedings, with celeb Lakers followers Rob Lowe, Flea and Snoop Dogg among the many voices receiving ample display time.

For the Lakers devoted, or frankly anybody within the NBA’s surge from the Magic-Hen matchups by way of in the present day, there’s nonetheless loads to love right here. However “Legacy” finally proves too dedicated to the Buss household’s portion of this sprawling story.

In that sense, the query Wilkes posed relating to Johnson echoes in a barely totally different manner for viewers — specifically, is that this being made for us, or is it being made for them?

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“Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers” premieres Aug. 15 on Hulu.

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