L.A. Lakers Series On HBO May Be 'Pissing' Everybody Off, But It Gets Some Things Right

The HBO series, "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers' Dynasty" opens poignantly at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Nov. 5, 1991.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson has just learned he has AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), also known as HIV (Human Immune Deficiency Virus). He gets into a car, and his driver begins weeping.

The show's intro begins with scenes from L.A. -- its glitz, its stars, the poverty, hopping lowrider cars and the Lakers, who won NBA titles with Magic and Kareem-Abdul Jabbar in 1980, '82, '85, '87 and '88.

The series begins with flamboyant businessman Jerry Buss -- shortly before buying the Lakers in 1979 from Jack Kent Cooke -- on a water bed with a nude woman trying to sleep in the Playboy Mansion.

"Basketball - I mean look at it. It's like great sex," Buss says to the woman. "It's always moving. It's rhythmic. It's up close and personal. There's no pads or helmets for protection. It's just you and these other guys out there trying to get the ball in the hoop. It's a beautiful thing. It's sexy. If there's two things in this world that make me believe in God, it's sex and basketball. I'm about to buy a team."

He exits the bedroom, passes more nude women sleeping and some cocaine on a coffee table and gets in his car.

And off we go.

Buss, who died in 2013 at age 80 with 10 NBA titles, is played so well by John C. Reilly that you forget Reilly was in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" in 2006. But he did say, "Because I like to party" in that movie, which is about all Buss does in this series. But he does take good care of his ill mother, played memorably by Sally Field. And Reilly, with shirts unbuttoned to his naval and wild, fake hair, looks just like Buss.

"Winning Time," which could also be called "Sex, Lies And The Fast Break," wraps up its first season on Sunday night on HBO with its 10th episode, "Promised Land," which portrays the Lakers' 1980 NBA title win over Philadelphia.

The series was picked up for a second season last month after a ratings surge that saw the seventh episode -- "The Invisible Man" -- watched by 59 percent more than the debut, according to HBO. The March 6 premier had about 900,000 viewers. The seventh installment had 1.4 million viewers.

Some former Lakers hate the series, particularly Jerry West, who was a team executive and scout in 1979-80 after coaching the team from 1976-79 following one of the greatest playing careers in NBA history from 1960-74. His image from a picture in 1968 remains the NBA logo to this day.

West, who later became general manager and built teams that won NBA titles in 1982, '85, '87, '88, 2000, 2001 and 2002, recently threatened to take series creators Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht to the Supreme Court over inaccuracies.

Abdul-Jabbar has also criticized the show, as has basketball writing legend Bob Ryan, who went after author Jeff Pearlman. The series is somewhat based on Pearlman's New York Times' bestseller "Showtime," published in 2013.

Barry Mendelson, who was West's manager in his final three seasons as a player from 1971-74 and was marketing director for the Forum where the Lakers played, could not get past the first episode.

"Well, in candor, I turned it off after the way they depicted Jerry," Mendelson said in a phone interview. "I have not watched it since. For what they did with Jerry, I turned it off, and haven't turned it back on."

There was a lot of wild West in the opening installment called, "The Swan."

Australian actor Jason Clarke ("Zero Dark Thirty," "White House Down," "Chappaquiddick") plays West with too thick of a face, way too much of an accent. West -- a Chelyan, West Virginia, native -- doesn't have one. West is also played with a psychotic temper that is a gross exaggeration to many.

"I never saw Jerry throw anything," Mendelson said. "I never saw him raise his voice. I did not hear him curse. I haven't watched after getting so pissed off."

In the first episode, West is telling Buss and Lakers general manager and former coach Bill Sharman -- played by Brett Cullen -- on the golf course that he does not want to draft Johnson out of national champion Michigan State with the first pick.

"We don't f-ing want him," Clarke, as West, yells.

"Pardon his French," Sharman says.

"Pardon my ass," West says.

"He's a generational talent, Jerry," Sharman says. "I mean, hell, he's the most exciting guard since you."

"Says f-ing who?" West says.

"Everybody," Sharman says.

"F-ing have them coach, OK," West says as he kicks golf balls and walks away. "I f-ing quit. I'm f-ing done. I can't even play a f-ing game of golf without you bringing up bullshit."

"Does this all the time," Sharman says to Buss. "Has never been happy."

The Lakers then hire Portland Trail Blazers' brainiac assistant Jack McKinney as head coach. It is McKinney, who first develops the Lakers' patented fast break style with Johnson that would be called "Showtime."

But a bicycle accident badly injures McKinney, played by Tracy Letts, and leaves assistants Paul Westhead and Pat Riley to coach the team. Many viewers may not remember McKinney's impact and heartbreaking plight, well depicted in the series.

The all-star cast includes veteran Adrien Brody expertly capturing a young Riley yet to become the legend and Jason Segel playing Westhead in a stretch.

West is also seen as an angry and mean Laker player in flashbacks to when Mendelson knew him. West did lose six NBA championship finals to the Boston Celtics, including in 1969 when he became the first and last player in NBA history to win the MVP and lose the series -- 108-106 in Game 7. After averaging 38 points a game in the series and scoring 42 with 13 rebounds and 12 assists in the final, he is shown throwing the MVP trophy in disgust. West is not even portrayed as happy after he and the Lakers finally win it all in 1972 over the New York Knicks.

Buss looks into the camera and says, "Jerry West - true gentleman of the sport to everyone who does not know him."

HBO Answers Jerry West's Charges

Mendelson, who did weekly radio and TV shows with West as a player and saw him nearly every day, couldn't believe it.

"He was played as grumpy, cantankerous," Mendelson said. "The Jerry I saw was always a gentleman - always. He was respectful. I've had more people call and tell me, they ran into Jerry on a golf course, and he was always glowing. And the guy playing him with that crappy hairpiece had the worst accent. Jerry didn't have that kind of an accent. He didn't sound like him. It wasn't him. I understand the filmmaker. I understand what he does with dramatizations, but I can't watch it."

Jim Gazzolo, who covered the Lakers with West as GM from 1995-2000 for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in the L.A. area, said West was the same way with reporters.

"Even during the years when they were bad in the 1990s, Jerry was always gracious, always nice," Gazzolo said. "I can honestly tell you, always treated us with class. He did have a reputation for being high strung. But I don't recall any explosions."

West, 81, did grow up hard in West Virginia.

"We all know that he had a difficult life," Mendelson said. "He's talked about his depression. I went with him to his home outside Charleston, West Virginia several times. I saw the house he grew up in. I know the father issues he had. He had that personality trait. But to see him in that light as volatile and outspoken and just outrageous, I never saw that. And I was with him all the time. He could be outspoken and wouldn't hold back at time. He wore his heart on his sleeve, but all class."

"Winning Time" does open every episode with the following disclaimer, though:

"This series is a dramatization of certain facts and events. Some of the names have been changed and some of the events and characters have been fictionalized, modified or composited for dramatic purposes."

The series also appears in some listings as a comedy, and at times, it is hilariously funny. Abdul-Jabbar is shown filming his scene in the 1980 movie, "Airplane." After filming, the young boy in the film asks him for an autograph, and Abdul-Jabbar -- played believably by Solomon Hughes -- tells the kid to "F-off."

A very funny scene, but it never happened, Abdul-Jabbar said.

"The show to me is very entertaining," Gazzolo said. "The accuracy? Maybe not so much."

The series does get several things right, though, Gazzolo pointed out. Older Laker writers told him in the past that Johnson's early teammates never called him Magic.

"He was Buck, for Young Buck, like they call him in the show," he said.

It is also true that West did not want to draft Johnson. He wanted Arkansas shooting guard Sidney Moncrief, who instead went to Milwaukee with the fifth pick of the 1979 draft and became a five-time NBA All-Star and is in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

"They nailed that outgoing personality and public persona of Jerry Buss, too," Gazzolo said. "Now, I didn't recognize Chick Hearne (the Lakers' announcer). Who was that guy?"

Mendelson didn't see it, but when told of West telling Magic that he at first didn't like him because he was too happy, Mendelson saw that as accurate.

"Jerry was the fiercest competitor that I've ever been next to," Mendelson said. "Jerry was like many others who say they are more unhappy in losing than they are happy in winning. That comes with your culture, your background. I can see Jerry saying something like that because that's how he was. Watch Jerry when he leaves the court after winning the title in 1972 -- just right to the dressing room. He did his job. That's all. He's not jumping up and down."

Mendelson is also forever tied to Johnson. Mendelson left the Forum after the 1974 season to become vice president of the New Orleans Jazz NBA team and later its general manager through 1978. When he signed Lakers guard Gail Goodrich to the Jazz after the 1975-76 season, Mendelson had to give up additional compensation in addition to the first round pick in 1977 to the Lakers. Mendelson agreed to flip picks with L.A. in the 1979 draft. The Jazz happened to finish dead last, and the Lakers got the first pick of the draft - Magic Johnson.

"I remember saying in '76, 'Who the hell knows what's going to happen in 1979?' Well, guess what? The Lakers won the world championship with Kareem injured and Magic playing center," Mendelson said.

That's Sunday night's episode.

"I tell you one thing they really got right," said Gazzolo, who interviewed Johnson about his promiscuity years after his retirement. "The guy playing Magic has him down -- that smile, the mannerisms, the way he talks."

Quincy Isaiah, who looks a lot like a young Magic, plays Johnson, who is from Lansing, Michigan. Isaiah -- a native of Muskegon, Michigan -- is in his first major role at age 26.

"It's uncanny," Gazzolo said. "He is Magic."