What do you think about the Laker team now?

You follow the box scores of the games every day?

Just the Lakers.

You're kidding.

That is really a compliment.

I was pleased to see you smile at the top bar show

because once the game starts, you have a game face.

You don't smile much out there.

I don't think you have to do things for money anymore.

Correct. What's up, Laker fans? Welcome to the Laker Film Room podcast, brought you by the Blue Wire Podcast Network. I'm Pete, joined by Darius and Mike. And in today's show, we're going to go back in time a little bit to begin the pod. The year is 1979, and Dr. Jerry Buss has just bought the Lakers

and drafted Magic Johnson with the number one overall pick. Now, it's important to understand

Dr. Buss's broader mentality when building out the team. He wanted us to not only be good,

he wanted us to be the best show in town, just really entertaining. And having arguably the best player in the league in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a rookie Magic

Johnson who had just captured the attention of the whole country with how he played, that

great matchup with Bird in Indiana State in 1979, was a huge moment for basketball

and the growth of basketball and getting more people interested in the sport.

So you're off to a great start. If you want to build an entertaining team that's good, you're off to a great start with that.

But you need a coach to do that. And so Dr. Bus hired Jack McKinney to play this fast-tempo style.

But just 13 games into the season, McKinney gets into a bicycling

accident and nearly dies. And thankfully, he recovered and lived a long life. I think he passed away

in 2018. But at the time, he was in really bad shape. So the Lakers are in the middle of their

season. They're like 9 and 4. And McKinney's top assistant coach has to take over Paul Westhead.

...