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Not only does Lakers executive Geneie Buss serve as an executive producer on The Legacy, but all of the children of late owner Jerry Buss sit down for interviews, along with an extensive list of former players, coaches and high-profile opponents of the team.
However, director Antoine Fuqua (whose documentaries include the sports-related What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali) tipped the scales too heavily for Jerry Buss and his determination to turn the NBA’s most iconic franchise into a family business. The result is a series peppered with highlights, but it feels like too much licensed product, laden with Buss family memorabilia.
In some ways, the whole exercise feels like an extended response to “Time to Win,” trying to reclaim the team’s narrative after that show’s exaggerated portrayal of key Lakers players and personnel that too often bordered on parody.
Jerry West, for example, who has publicly criticized the HBO show, calmly and openly discusses how demanding he was as a coach, saying of players, “I was sorry they had to play for me,” while others celebrate his brilliant eye for identifying talent in his executive capacity.
Fuqua also contextualizes “Legacy” in the larger sociological context of Los Angeles, a city of diverse communities drawn together by their shared love of the Lakers and Dodgers — at least when the teams are winning. In that respect, the series has a lot in common with last year’s ESPN documentary Once Upon a Time in Queens, which focused on the Mets and their relationship with New York.
Still, a production already enamored with personalities has at times raced through actual basketball, to the point where if you blinked twice during the segment devoted to the teams of the 80s, you might miss another championship.
What remains are the bits and pieces: how Buss turned the Forum, where the Lakers played, into the hottest nightspot in a city of stars; The Lakers girls and other innovations that fellow owners rushed to copy, with Buss raising the price of floor seats from $10.50 to $65; and Magic Johnson’s unprecedented 25-year contract, prompting teammate Jamal Wilks and the rest of the team to ask about Johnson’s close ties to ownership: “Is he one of us or one of them?”
“Legacy” shoots a much higher rate when the subject turns to basketball, with Julius Irving, aka Dr. J, praising Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as “the greatest of all time,” and Celtics star Larry Bird expresses a similar sense of awe, saying he hoped his brother had seen him standing courtside near the Lakers’ big man.
Six of the 10 episodes were provided, enough to get through the Lakers’ down years following Abdul-Jabbar’s retirement and Johnson’s HIV diagnosis, as well as the signing of Shaquille O’Neal and the drafting of teen sensation Kobe Bryant. sparking a title-winning revival.
Even then, there seems to be as much interest in coach Phil Jackson’s personal relationship with Jeanie Buss. The filmmakers also couldn’t resist adding the obligatory Hollywood pizzazz to the proceedings, with celebrity Lakers fans Rob Lowe, Flea and Snoop Dogg among the voices getting plenty of screen time.
For the Lakers faithful, or frankly anyone interested in the NBA’s heyday from the Magic-Bird matchups to today, there’s still a lot to like here. But “Legacy” ultimately finds itself too committed to the Buss family’s part of this sprawling story.
In this sense, the question that Wilkes posed regarding Johnson resonates in a slightly different way for viewers—namely, is this about us or is it about them?
“Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers” premieres August 15 on Hulu.
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