Paramount+ with Showtime Should Save ‘Winning Time’ and Rename It ‘Showtime’

With the recent cancellation of “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” after just two seasons, HBO has left the Los Angeles Lakers off on a historic loss.

“Winning Time” Season 1 ended with the Lakers’ 1980 NBA Championship; Season 2 zoomed through their 1982 win and ended (now awkwardly) with the team’s crushing ’84 loss to the Boston Celtics.And that will be that for “Winning Time” — there will be no rematch with the Celtics in ’85, which is when the Lakers finally defeated their rivals in the NBA Finals.

There will be no repeat result in ’87 (the Celts defeated the Houston Rockets to win again in 1986), when Magic Johnson won the rubber series against Larry Bird.

And there will definitely be no coup de grace in 1988, which cemented the Lakers as the team of the ’80s.It’s an unfitting end to a good series (with an excellent theme song) with impressive casting,…

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