Mateo’s Hoop Diary: HBO’s unanswered questions about Winning Time’s cancellation and the upset Lakers

HBO canceled its show Winning Time in September because of a 40% drop in viewership and has refused to answer who the intended audience was. Remember that the Lakers team shown in the program is between 45 and 40 years old (the show’s story ends in 1984). The network also didn’t answer what made them think the public would be interested in the stories of a group that age when the NBA has recently added an In-Season Tournament because it wants to “drive additional interest in the early portion of the regular-season schedule.”

That’s code for the NBA is not satisfied with its number of spectators.

Additionally, HBO PR chiefs Raina Falcon and Diego Aldana did not answer what impact the criticisms of former Lakers had on the show. Magic Johnson, Norm Nixon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and more spoke negatively about Winning Time any chance they could when the show went lite on their reputations in comparison to Jeff Pearlman’s book, Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, it is based on. Interestingly, no one is discrediting Pearlman’s writing, and he spoke with close to 300 people for the assignment.

In the summer of 2023, during the SAG-AFTRA strike, cast members of Winning Time could not promote the program. Still, Pearlman, who even had a cameo as a journalist in one episode in season two, did futilely on X(formerly Twitter) as much as possible.

Johnson told reporters he “never watched” HBO’s “fictional” account and that no one could tell the story. Yet, the scenes from the show of him working out with Pat Riley to recover from his knee injury come from his 1983 memoir (published at age 23) Magic by himself and Richard Levin.

Abdul-Jabbar said it was boring because of bland, crude characterizations and compared it to gossip-mongering on the Real Housewives in his Substack writing page.

Nixon said it wasn’t true and that he never had issues with Johnson, as a guest on the Skyhook podcast with Michael Cooper and Abdul-Jabbar. His son, DeVaughn, portrayed him on the show.

In later interviews, he criticized Johnson for his tight bond with Buss, saying he couldn’t hang out so frequently with the owner and then with the team, but never mentioned that he partied with both as well. (At the peculiar press conference introducing Pat Riley as Lakers coach, Buss revealed that he was going to a birthday party with Johnson and Nixon.)

Gary Vitti chose not to return after two days of consulting in protest of Jerry West’s portrayal.

Riley just walked by and said “no” when asked by reporters at Miami Heat training camp if he liked Adrien Brody’s interpretation of him.

Jeanie Buss, who tried to get the show canceled before it aired, said she thought no one had a right to tell the Lakers’ story in her interview with Graham Bensinger. “We tried for a couple of years [to shut down the show. We] really leaned on the corporate lawyers, and I thought they would be able to stop it. The explanation given to me is that it’s protected under first amendment rights…”

Despite early objections to production and material in the program, Jeanie Buss admires the performance of John C. Reilly as her father, calling it “absolutely breathtaking as [Jerry Buss].

Here’s the deal: The show took many liberties, bothering and hurting some of those who lived it, especially West, who even pursued legal action, demanding a retraction and apology from HBO. The Network denied both.

In reality, West didn’t throw his trophy out of a window. Johnson didn’t storm off the court after his altercation with coach Paul Westhead. Jack Kent Cooke was not that unfriendly towards Jerry Buss. Bill Sharman couldn’t raise his voice that high, then. Claire Rothman did not unbutton her shirt to flatter Buss’ eye. And Buss was more sensitive than his portrayal, despite showing mainly his cavalier side, plus many other things.

But it was never a documentary and there is a disclaimer that it is a dramatization.

Still, Johnson is the luckiest that Winning Time was canceled and didn’t follow Pearlman’s book 100% to the text. Here’s an excerpt of Frank Brickowski describing his mansion parties in Chapter 13- Virginal: “He would have the finest girls in LA there. The absolute finest. And at midnight you had to get busy with somebody or get the fuck out. So, if you were a guy, at midnight you’d get as close as you could to the hottest possible woman. Magic went around in this voyeuristic way. He’d check on you. He’d go throughout the house, the pool. He’d order people to start doing things. All you had to do is be near a chick. There were guys who would yell, ‘Magic, she’s not getting busy! She’s not!’ He’d run over there and she’d get busy…”

Furthermore, in one scene of the show in Episode One, The Swan, Abdul-Jabbar is shown telling his child co-star of the film Airplane to “Fuck off.” He denied this in his blog or ever mouthing off to any minor. However, Linda Rambis, executive director of special projects with the Lakers, is on the record in Chapter 4- Center of Complications in Pearlman’s book saying, “Some little kid would ask for an autograph and he’d say, ‘Go fuck yourself.’ But Kareem was, otherwise, an incredible professional.”

But Rothman, the former general manager of the Forum, now retired at 95 years old, said to Five Reasons Sports Network that Winning Time was unfair to its subjects but that it was closer to realism in the second season.

Regarding Buss, Rothman said the show did not accurately depict the dimension of the man. “He was an avid reader who read two or three books a week. He loved theater. He loved symphony. He loved ballet.”

He was also receptive to the ideas of his employees. For example, Rothman once asked for a raise. She wrote him a memo explaining how underpaid she was compared to people from all over the country who did similar work, but he never read the second page. Two weeks later, Buss summoned her to his Pickfair mansion for a business lunch. There, he obliged her wishes and gave her a $100,000 raise on the condition that she couldn’t ask for another next year.

Buss also got involved as a donor to The Music Center in LA. Rothman was on the board at the time. She and others who were closely around him were dispirited by the direction of his character because they agreed Buss wasn’t one to disrespect another publicly.

Concerning the interpretation of Abdul-Jabbar, Rothman said it was stupid.

Rothman was appalled by West’s “unkind” depiction, too. She had a friendly relationship with him when she worked at the Forum, but he never interfered with her business. His priorities were basketball matters, and the one time they discussed anything in her field was in a brief comment about Barbera Streisand not coming to perform at the Forum, according to Rothman.

She said there weren’t enough moments that showed his softer side. Towards the end of Pearlman’s book, he does showcase West’s generosity, taking his colleagues out to dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House while providing them with laughs.

And she was sickened by the scene of her character undoing her hair and then the top buttons of her shirt.

Pearlman said in an interview on The Rich Eisen Show that Winning Time wasn’t a documentary, but he understands the frustration of those portrayed, and that he has no issues with the characterization, particularly West, because it is in line with his autobiography, West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life. “It’s sort of true to the tortured and tormented soul that he was.”

He would add in his interview with Eisen that West “was combustible, highly strung, couldn’t watch his team…”

Jeanie Buss wasn’t interested in helping HBO after she saw the script for episode one. She sent a copy of it to Rothman, who, in solidarity, wouldn’t participate either.

In 2022, the same year as Winning Time’s first season, the Lakers publicized their show Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers. It is a 10-part docuseries directed and produced by Antonie Fuqua. Jeanie Buss was also an executive producer.

The first four episodes cover the Showtime Lakers era, and some of the interviews shown validate Pearlman’s book.

In the first episode of Legacy, West, a program volunteer, said, “Coaching for me was a difficult chore. I am an emotional person, and sometimes, I don’t hide that very well.”

He also mentions feeling sad for the players who competed for him from 1976-79.

The following episode explains the awkward press conference when Buss announced that West and Pat Riley would be in charge of the offense and defense post firing of coach Westhead. Jeanie Buss described it as tone-setting for their working relationship because her father wanted to be known as a decision-maker. The team’s former public relations director, Bruce Jolesch, is quoted in Pearlman’s book, saying, “We put on a clinic on how not to conduct a press conference.”

In the same episode of Legacy, West says that he didn’t think Nixon was a good compliment to Johnson in the back court, but the two of them were arguably the top guard pairing in the NBA. Johnson wrote in his memoir that he told Buss that Nixon was the top guard choice he’d like to play with because “his quickness adds a dimension to my game that nobody else can.”

According to Pearlman, West booted Nixon from the team the because he saw him as an issue. He hired a private investigator to try to identify a drug problem to justify his cause.

With Winning Time’s cancellation, the opportunity was wasted by HBO (unless the rights to the program are bought and another studio continues) for the show to continue the dramatized story of Showtime or even one of the following duos- the Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant era from Pearlman’s Laker follow up, Three Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty.

West, Jeanie Buss, Nixon and Pearlman didn’t want to speak for this story.