‘Winning Time,’ the Showtime Lakers, and the elusive truth
Editor’s note: This is the Monday, May 9 edition of the Purple & Bold Lakers newsletter from reporter Kyle Goon. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.
There is a scene in episode 8 of “Winning Time” – perhaps one of the best scenes in the show’s first season – that sees Jerry West sitting in the Lakers’ locker room across from Magic Johnson, who is in a rare dour mood after a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.
In terms of tone, there could not be two characters who are more different. There’s West, the ornery, restless soul who is tormented by memories of losses long past. Then there is Johnson, the effervescent rising star who seemingly has never met a challenge he couldn’t disarm with his smile. But in that moment, it seems West recognizes something in Johnson that he had within himself: a relentless desire to win.
“A championship,” says West with a sly look over to Johnson, “Well, that takes a real killer.”
Any piece of information requires context. I was immediately reminded of a passage from David Halberstam’s “Breaks of the Game,” chronicling this same 1979-80 season in which he voices the musings of anonymous basketball observers, wondering from afar if Johnson – whose upbeat demeanor seemed almost too commercially appealing to be taken seriously – was a player who could truly contend in the NBA.
It seems a somewhat outlandish point of speculation in retrospect, now that we know Johnson was the engine of one of the greatest NBA dynasties ever. But back in 1980, there was plenty of skepticism that Johnson was a serious competitor – illustrated also by how Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reacted with distaste when Johnson grabbed him in a joyous embrace after the Lakers prevailed in the season opener of his rookie season. Over the course of the season, Johnson slowly won all of them over.
Another thought popped into my head as I watched the scene with Johnson and West: This conversation, as presented, almost certainly never happened on Feb. 10, 1980, in the Philadelphia visiting locker room.
The other piece of context that you can never forget while watching “Winning Time” is that it is dramatized, with fictional elements. Some of them are used to juice up the show for entertainment, with off-color jokes or steamy titillation. Others might be conjured out of convenience. But some scenes, manufactured though they might be, are meant to underscore a kind of truth.
That doesn’t meet the standards of journalism or documentary work, but “Winning Time” doesn’t claim to adhere to such rules. It is a Hollywood dramatization, and Hollywood has rarely let the truth get in the way of a good story. But interestingly, that gray area – where dramatization meets the real story – is subject to all kinds of scrutiny thanks to the “Showtime” Lakers themselves.
West has been the most aggressively critical of his portrayal. Attorneys representing West fired off a public demand for a retraction last month, armed with eight testimonials (mostly by people portrayed in the show) attesting to West’s character and protesting his early scenes as a screaming, raging mess of a man. Plenty of people have attested that very little in these early episodes register as true to West’s character and that the man whose very silhouette became the basis of the NBA’s logo has been done dirty by HBO.
While watching the show, it’s apparent why the Lakers as an organization and many of the franchise legends have disassociated themselves from it. It’s not particularly flattering to many of the principals, highlighting their propensity for womanizing and partying. Around the Lakers’ franchise, employees still speak reverently of “Dr. Buss,” who is remembered more as the franchise visionary and charismatic leader than John C. Reilly’s swaggering playboy. Magic Johnson has said he hasn’t watched the show; it probably would not be pleasant for him to watch the dramatization of his romantic encounters. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar called the show “drearily dull,” but more pointedly took issue with the (somewhat throwaway) bit in the show when he told the child actor Ross Harris in the film “Airplane!” to “(expletive) off,” something “I have never said to any child.”
Abdul-Jabbar might want to take that up with Linda Rambis, who told Jeff Pearlman in the source material Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s: “Some little kid would ask for an autograph and he’d say, ‘Go (expletive) yourself.’” While that’s hardly an anecdote of him saying that to Harris, one can see how “Winning Time” writers might have used that for inspiration for the scene. The same with several people in the book speaking to Jerry Buss’ stamina for late nights with young women in the Forum Club (one friend recalled Buss saying: “Why wouldn’t I go out with a 26-year-old Playmate with a hot body?”). Or even West and Norm Nixon recounting how tough West was on his point guard as a coach, which was translated in the show into aspects of West’s character.
Of the show’s general fixation on the pulpy, sexy side of the 1979-80 Lakers, it’s worth stating something obvious: Moreso than any other NBA franchise, the Lakers’ image has long overlapped with celebrity and sex appeal. Some of Buss’ key insights into elevating his franchise into the epitome of cool were the Forum Club, the Laker girls and making his home games a Who’s Who den of Hollywood’s most famous faces. You could never make a convincing account of that era of Lakers basketball completely divorced from the more lurid traits of the franchise.
There was never going to be a perfect translation of the facts from the book onto the screen. The “Showtime” Lakers have every right to be upset with the discrepancies. But it’s also interesting to see what people take issue with. In the show, Pat Riley is represented as a down-on-his-luck former player who stumbles into a broadcasting career that doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere fast. In reality, when Riley became an assistant, he had been doing color commentary for three seasons with Chick Hearn, and in the book, plenty of people are willing to laud Riley’s ability in this role. But that particular narrative shortcut isn’t one that seems to inspire a lot of angst – perhaps because Riley’s character doesn’t seem particularly at stake either way.
While the nature of being a public figure in America has long been associated with seeing your name and image twisted within popular culture, we should not assume that the people portrayed in “Winning Time” should be able to easily stomach how their characters are manipulated for entertainment. Indeed, at a recent film premiere for former teammate Dicky Barnett, West – who is famously ornery behind the scenes – could not have been more gracious for lines and lines of people who wanted to come up, shake his hand and chat with him a while. He is still extremely conscious of his image and how it represents the NBA, and dressed smartly in a suit, he’s incredibly capable of warmth and attention. He’s opened his veins in more ways than one, speaking at length about his battles with his various demons including a rough upbringing and lifelong struggles with mental health.
It is a little curious, then, that West’s image cultivated over 83 years would be under such a threat from this TV show, which acknowledges that elements are fictionalized and dramatized for effect. Especially when this is not the only accounting of this era being released this year: Concurrently, Johnson has been promoting his own Apple TV+ documentary “They Call Me Magic”, while the Lakers are supposed to release their own sanctioned documentary on Hulu later this year directed by Antoine Fuqua. Both of these projects have more involvement from the people who lived through this era – but as anyone who watched “The Last Dance” series about the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls can attest, more involvement doesn’t always mean more authoritative, factual and complete.
What the battle between HBO and former Lakers greats might illustrate best of all is the era we live in: one in which the details are always somewhat difficult to grasp as competing narratives butt heads. The “Showtime” Lakers were probably not as loose and swinging as the HBO series suggests, but the notion that they were buttoned up isn’t quite right either. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, conveniently overlooked or overwritten by HBO screenwriters for artistic license, and conveniently skipped over or ignored by some of the people of that era who would like to be portrayed in the most flattering light.
We live in a time where athletes want to tell their own stories – like LeBron James creating his own production company Uninterrupted – not necessarily with the goal of being the most open and most vulnerable, but having the most control. In this respect, Michael Jordan might be the gold standard: In his own documentary, he got the last word on every detail and piece of footage shown, even if his perspective diverged from the truth.
If there is a competing story to tell, many of these athletes have the ability to push their own version of events. Indeed, West has written an autobiography, “West by West,” that provides important context for anyone watching “Winning Time” who wants to know why so many people seem to take issue with how he shows up on screen.
But asking for a retraction in a public letter? Saying he’s willing to battle it out in court? That might just be good publicity for HBO. The show’s viewership increased in the second half of the season, largely after figures like West, Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar had spoken out against it. There’s always going to be a segment of people who want to know what those guys don’t want you to see. West has a better chance of scoring 20 points in an NBA game today than getting HBO to retract a show that has already sold a second season.
It’s not necessarily HBO’s fault that the truth, and the necessary context, can be so hard to grasp. The best, most truthful account is somewhere in the gulf between, and for us as viewers, faced with so many competing accounts, it’s as difficult as ever to navigate and wrap our hands around it.
– Kyle Goon
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