Winning Time: Every Coach The Lakers Considered After Jerry West Quit
The Los Angeles Lakers scoured the NBA for a new head coach after Jerry West quit in 1979, something that's well-documented in HBO's Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty episode 3. After Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979, he orchestrated the franchise's evolution to become one of the biggest sports teams in the world. This came after the team chose Earvin 'Magic' Johnson as the first pick in the draft, which then-head coach Jerry West didn't agree with, as he wanted the Lakers to draft Sidney Moncrief. The disagreement was one of many reasons why West eventually walked out on the team.
Although Winning Time has changed the true story to place Jerry West's departure much closer to the start of the 1979-1980 NBA season, his decision to leave the Los Angeles Lakers is accurate. He revealed his plans to Jerry Buss at the end of Winning Time episode 2, but the start of episode 3 showed the fallout. Buss was unsurprisingly very upset with West for the so-called «retirement,» especially as the new Lakers owner felt a surge of confidence moments before that the team could rise to the top. Once tempers settled down, Winning Time episode 3 largely focuses on the search for the next coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Related: Winning Time Episode 2 True Story Explained: What It Gets Right & Wrong
The bulk of Winning Time episode 3 is centered around Jerry Buss going after Jerry Tarkanian to become the Lakers' next head coach. Tarkanian is not a consensus selection due to his controversial past, however, which leads Lakers GM Bill Sharman and others to look high and low for other head coaching candidates. Winning Time episode 3 teased some of these other possibilities through background details and cameos, which could be
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