Adam McKay’s new HBO series, Winning Time, has drawn the ire of countless ex-Lakers, including Jerry West, who the show depicts as a rage-driven egomaniac, throwing frequent tantrums while lamenting his lone championship in 1972, losing all six of his NBA Finals matchups with Boston. In fact, West is so upset by Winning Time’s portrayal of the Lakers dynasty that he’s threatening legal action, demanding a retraction and a formal apology from both McKay and HBO (neither have commented publicly).
"Jerry West was an integral part of the Lakers and NBA's success. It is a travesty that HBO has knowingly demeaned him for shock value and the pursuit of ratings,” wrote West’s attorney, Skip Miller, in a letter obtained by ESPN. “As an act of common decency, HBO and the producers owe Jerry a public apology and at the very least should retract their baseless and defamatory portrayal of him." Miller also alleges the show’s interpretation of West, framing him as an “out-of-control, intoxicated rage-aholic,” has caused the Hall of Famer and his family “great distress.”
It should be noted that Winning Time, though based on true events detailed in Jeff Pearlman’s best-selling book, Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, is a fictional series and was never intended as a documentary. To remind audiences of the creative liberties taken by McKay and others involved in the show’s production, each episode includes a disclaimer, which reads: “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.”
Despite rebukes from West and others associated with the 1980s Lakers (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a scathing review of the series in a recent blog post), Winning Time has been well-received by critics, garnering an 84-percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Accurate or not, interest in the show appears to be growing with 1.4 million viewers tuning in for Sunday night’s episode, up 11 percent from the week before and 59 percent from its premiere on March 6th, according to Variety’s Jennifer Maas.
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