Despite a rough 2021-22 season, the Los Angeles Lakers had their fair share of media projects hit streaming services.
The most controversial program was Season 1 of HBO’s ‘Winning Time’ which depicted Jerry Buss’ purchase of the team and their path to winning the 1980 NBA championship. Lakers governor Jeanie Buss conceded some scenes were accurate —particularly one between Magic Johnson and Dr. Buss— but other prominent figures were not happy with the show.
Jeanie noted she’s watched ‘Winning Time’ but does not actively recommend people to see it although she was pleased with the job John C. Reilly did portraying her father, via Kirsten Chuba of The Hollywood Reporter:
“It does seem like a lot. We are not involved in the HBO scripted series. I have watched it — I don’t recommend people watch it or I don’t tell people not to watch it; everybody’s grown up, they can make their choice. They got a lot of stuff right and they got a lot of stuff wrong. I thought John C. Reilly did a good job playing my dad and in capturing that enthusiasm that he had for the sports; some of the other stuff, not so much. When you’re a high-profile organization, those are the things that happen, people want to talk about you. That’s a good thing when people want to talk about the Lakers.”
‘Winning Time’ portrays Jeanie as having a significant role in the franchise early on, but she pushed back against that:
“Yeah, until it’s not. As much as they portrayed my character as having a lot of the the input into the Laker girls and things like that, that’s not the case. But I was there, right at the beginning and I was just there as my dad’s right-hand man, whatever he needed to do he was happy to turn it over and say, ‘Go get doughnuts,’ ‘Go to Russia and try to get some events to come back to the Forum.’ Whatever he needed me to do is what I wanted to do, and those were some great times in my life.”
Up to this point, Jeanie has done a good job of stewarding the franchise as she captured her first championship back in 2020. ‘Winning Time’ is set to return for a second season and hopefully they’ve listened to the criticism and rectified some things.
HBO looking for actors for Season 2 of ‘Winning Time’
Season 2 of ‘Winning Time’ is expected to explore the rest of the 1980s, which means viewers will be treated to more figures making their on-screen debuts. In that vein, the program is currently looking for actors to play players like Kurt Rambis, Mitch Kupchak, James Worthy and Byron Scott.
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