Are you looking forward to finally seeing Winning Time when it debuts on HBO? If you answered yes, you are very different from a number of people associated with the NBA. A cover story for The Hollywood Reporter by Lacey Rose details that the league, the Lakers, and several players have expressed a distinct lack of support for the series in various ways.
The league did not get creative input on the series. It also did not authorize the use of any logos or trademarks. NBA lawyers have already reached out to HBO to point this out.
As for the former players, Rose writes that several of the stars of the Showtime-era Lakers “allegedly detest [Winning Time’s] very existence.” She has sources that say former players are worried about just how much of the real story is going to be told. They wish they or the league had some way to “whitewash” what makes it to the screen.
Magic Johnson, in particular, doesn’t seem thrilled. He told TMZ that he “is not looking forward” to the show’s debut. He could be concerned about being painted in an unflattering light. He could also be concerned that the project will create competition for his own project, an auto-biographical docu-series at Apple TV+ in April. He and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has also expressed reservations, will be part of a documentary for Hulu about those teams that the Lakers are behind.
HBO is pulling out all the stops to promote Winning Time. That included a private party and special screening in Cleveland that members of the team and NBA officials declined to attend. Rose contacted the Lakers for her article and received a response that read “We have no comment as we are not supporting nor involved with this project.”
Executive Producer Adam McKay hopes that some of those people will have their minds changed once they see the finished product.
“We’re coming at this with good intentions, but these guys don’t know that,” he told Rose. “They’re used to a certain degree of media that’s always going after them, and if I could talk to them, I’d say, ‘No, no, don’t worry, we’re going to paint the whole picture,’ but I get it, they don’t know me or [our showrunner] Max Borenstein, and it’s their right to really not like it.”
