Legacy: The true story of the L.A. Lakers

A friend of mine recently suggested that I watch this after I was talking to him about how much I really enjoyed the documentary about the Bulls that did so well on Netflix. I didn't know it existed because I don't have Hulu but I have to say, this is one of the best basketball documentaries that I have ever seen and I have been thoroughly enjoying it.

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There was a bit of a friendly rivalry in my household when I was a kid. My father really liked the Celtics because of Larry Bird, my older sister really liked the Bulls because of Michael Jordan, and I really liked the Lakers because of Magic Johnson. My Dad's preference was probably a lot more educated than the rest of ours because I think I became a Magic fan just because his name was Magic and I probably got a hold of some promotional poster that came with a box of cereal. My Dad liked the Celtics because he had always been a Celtics fan.

It didn't much matter though because it made the games more exciting in our house and we would even put small bets on the games. It was always something like 25 cents so there is no reason to think that we were running a child gambling center.

Lakers documentaries have been done before but this one is extremely in-depth, is very well-produced, and goes back a long ways to the 1980 season when a man named Jerry Buss bought the team at a time when the Lakers, and most NBA teams were losing money over poor attendance and a general lack of interest on the part of the public. This one man would reinvent the way the sport was presented to the public and kind of overhauled what very well might have been a dying industry. He also turned the Lakers into a dynasty that became a league favorite to make the playoffs every single year.

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I enjoyed watching basketball a LOT when I was a kid and I was very dedicated to the Lakers' roster that existed in the 80s more than any other time in my life. The Pat Riley days with Magic, Scott, Cooper, Worthy, Abdul-Jabbar, and even Kurt Rambis were my favorite times as a basketball fan at any other point in my life. This probably had something to do with the urgency involved in a time where if you missed a game, you couldn't just stream it any ol' time you felt like it. You needed to know when the game was on, on what channel, and if you weren't in front of the TV when said game was on, you missed all of it.

It was just a really exciting part of my life and I am glad that my family embraced it like they did. Every week we would have something to get excited about as a family and this was especially true when one of our favorite teams was going to play against one of the other family members' teams was the opposition. My older sister had to wait a little while to get in on the action, because the Bulls weren't any good until many years later in the 80's.

Legacy isn't even completed being aired week-by-week yet, but 8 episodes are available now on Hulu and of course from pirate sources as well. For any basketball fan, especially those that were alive in the 80's, this is a must watch show. I guarantee you are going to learn something you didn't already know.