As Michigan State men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo continues to seek Dwayne Stephens’ replacement at the vacant assistant coach position, I realized that the HBO series “Winning Time” relates to Michigan State basketball more pertinently than its portrayal of Spartan legend Magic Johnson.
I’ve only seen one clip of the show, but I’m confident that the scene with then-Los Angeles Lakers head coach Jack Mckinney’s film session hit home for Spartan faithful just as much, if not more, than the show’s renditions of Gruff Sparty.
McKinney introduces his directive to implement a constant fast-break offense to deviate from the “methodical, predictable and slow” norm of offensive sets and to “make (their) own” breaks.