WINNING Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, the prestige series currently running on HBO Go (and HBO Max in other territories) has been raking in acclaim for its stylish portrayal of the Showtime Lakers. “It doesn’t take knowing a three pointer from a driving manoeuvre to find that story compelling, especially when told in this punchy, pacy manner,” wrote Dan Einav of the Financial Times.
The Lakers who inspired the story, though, are less than happy about how they’re being portrayed on screen.
The outspoken Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has blasted the show for its “shallowness and lazy writing,” and confessed that he has no real interest in watching the show. In his Substack newsletter, he actually had no problem with the way Solomon Hughes is playing him, or the way the show isn’t sticking to historical facts. But he did call out the show for “being boring.”
Said the LA legend and author: “The characters are crude stick-figure representations that resemble real people the way Lego Hans Solo resembles Harrison Ford.
“Each character is reduced to a single bold trait as if the writers were afraid anything more complex would tax the viewers’ comprehension. Jerry Buss is Egomaniac Entrepreneur, Jerry West is Crazed Coach, Magic Johnson is Sexual Simpleton, I’m Pompous Prick. They are caricatures, not characters.”
Magic Johnson also slams Winning Time
Magic Johnson, meanwhile, also said in a podcast interview that he hasn’t watched it, and he has no interest in doing so, because “there’s no Lakers around telling that story.”
Series co-creator Max Borenstein has admitted that the show was made without any input from that era’s Lakers.
Meanwhile, Jerry West has gone further, sending a legal letter to Winning Time’s executive producer Adam McKay, as well as HBO and its parent company Warner Bros.-Discovery, demanding a legal retraction within the next two weeks.
As reported by Variety, attorneys for the Lakers legend (played by a fired-up Jason Clarke in the show), said that its “deliberately false characterization” has caused “caused great distress to Jerry and his family.”
“As an act of common decency,” said the lawyers, “HBO and the producers owe Jerry a public apology and at the very least should retract their baseless and defamatory portrayal of him.”
The show is based on the bestselling book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, written by Jeff Pearlman.
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