Actors bring ’80s Lakers legends to life in drama
‘Winning Time’ looks at creation of entertainment around basketball
When NBA legend Michael Jordan reminisced about his remarkable career and final championship season with the Chicago Bulls in 2020’s “The Last Dance,” viewers turned up in droves, making the ESPN docuseries an instant smash.
HBO is hoping to score a similar victory with a strikingly different story of basketball greatness, one that could easily be subtitled “Flashdance.” “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” stars a veteran team of top-tier performers and a pair of screen rookies portraying NBA legends Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Set at the start of the “Showtime” era of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, the series — which airs Sundays on HBO and streams on HBO Max — depicts how the team, with an assist from the fresh-faced rookie Johnson and the dominant but moody Abdul-Jabbar, realized owner Jerry Buss’ revolutionary vision of mixing muscular athleticism with noisy, sexy entertainment, transforming the franchise into a dazzling powerhouse with worldwide popularity.
Like “The Last Dance,” “Winning Time” is filled with strong, colorful personalities; intense locker room drama; memorable allusions to pop culture; and the pressurized frenzy of sporting fame. But against its predecessor’s relatively straightforward documentary approach, anchored by talking head interviews with the key players, “Winning Time” is an extensively researched, rollicking tale of flash, cash and clashes, filled with outrageous situations likely to make viewers wonder, “Did that really happen that way?” It’s the latest from executive producer Adam McKay, who also directed the pilot and injects the series with the irreverent flavor of his previous projects, with family drama to rival “Succession” and stylistic touches reminiscent of his films “The Big Short,” “Vice” and “Don’t Look Up.”
“We want everyone to have a blast watching this,” said co-creator, showrunner and executive producer Max Borenstein. “It’s a show about how basketball changed culture. This moment in American history changed the NBA and influenced our culture on a global scale.”
Added executive producer Rodney Barnes: “At its core, this is about the creation of entertainment and show around basketball. People will get a better idea of the business of basketball, plus the behind-the-scenes stuff you didn’t know, along with the things you did know.”
With salacious edge and freewheeling energy, “Winning Time” sees characters break the fourth wall, commenting on the action and winking at the audience. On-screen captions identify characters, often with unflattering descriptions. The dialogue is crammed with expletives.
Some viewers may be startled by some of the excessive behavior, Barnes acknowledged. “Anytime you do some kind of rendition of a team or players or individuals, there are many facets. There is the public persona, the persona within the game, and then you have aspects of who a person may be, based upon the research that we’ve done.”
He added, “I think it’s a fully realized portrait. No human being is one particular thing. We don’t do anything in ‘Winning Time’ that is disparaging, or at least that’s not the intent. This is done out of love and appreciation for the Lakers and the game itself.”
The star-studded cast includes John C. Reilly as Lakers owner Jerry Buss; Jason Clarke as Laker legend Jerry West; Adrien Brody as coach Pat Riley; Jason Segel as his Shakespeare-quoting colleague Paul Westhead; Sally Field as Jerry’s mother, Jessie Buss; and Hadley Robinson as young Jeanie.
Occupying the center of the action are newcomers Quincy Isaiah and Solomon Hughes, who play Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar, respectively. Both have minimal acting experience: Isaiah, who like Johnson hails from Michigan, has had a few minor roles. Hughes, a former college basketball player and Harlem Globetrotter who earned a doctorate in higher education from the University of Georgia and lectured at Stanford University’s School of Higher Education, is making his professional acting debut.
“I was a Shaq fan, so naturally I loved the Lakers,” Isaiah said with a huge smile during a recent interview with Hughes.
“Since I was a kid, I’ve been a Kareem kid,” the latter piped in. “His autobiography ‘Giant Steps,’ along with ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X,’ were some of the first books I ever read. To play someone that I’ve admired my whole life is just surreal.”
Stepping into the high-top sneakers of superstars was a challenge for both actors, neither of who consulted with his character’s real-life counterpart. It was particularly difficult to portray moments that illustrated Johnson’s and Abdul-Jabbar’s frailties.
“It’s tough, I’m not going to lie,” Isaiah said. “You’re playing someone who is beloved, a hero. It’s tough to see that the people you look up to are human. But it’s also helpful. It shows that they’re not that different from you. You can mess up, make mistakes and still come out on top.”
“There is definitely fear and trepidation in playing these guys,” Hughes added. “But I don’t take for granted the opportunity to honor these men, to tell their story and show what they built, the coming together of sports and entertainment. These were the two players at the center of making that happen.”
Isaiah and Hughes grew close during the grueling production process, which combined acting with physical training and basketball practice at the main set — a regulation-size basketball court built inside a huge Los Angeles soundstage.
“My life has changed because of Quincy,” Hughes said. “I can’t imagine having to embark on this journey without him. He breathes life into the room.”
Isaiah responded, “I always joke that Solomon is the adult in the room, and I get to be the kid. He would send me encouraging messages telling me I’m a leader. I really needed to hear that. That was huge. I don’t think he knows how much that meant to me. This is my friend, my brother.”
They both hope that viewers enjoy the project. But Isaiah also has a message for viewers who recognize him after “Winning Time” airs.
“I just want to say this — this is TV,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to come up to me challenging me to a game of one-onone.”