Kareem Abdul-Jabbar criticizes HBO’s Winning Time, calling it “drearily dull”
The former Laker comments on the series in a new Substack blog post
Aux News Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has stated his piece on the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, and boy does he have some critiques. The legendary basketball player’s issues do not lie with any inaccuracies or dramatization of the events covered in the series, but come from a storytelling perspective. For Abdul-Jabbar, if you’re going to be historically inaccurate, at least make it interesting.
“There is only one immutable sin in writing: Don’t Be Boring! Winning Time commits that sin over and over,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote in a substack blog titled “Winning Time Isn’t Just Deliberately Dishonest, It’s Drearily Dull.”
“I’ll start with the bland characterization. The characters are crude stick-figure representations that resemble real people, the way Lego Han Solo resembles Harrison Ford. Each character is reduced to a single bold trait, as if the writers were afraid anything more complex would tax the viewers’ comprehension.”
However, he does want to make clear that he never said “fuck you” to a child actor as the series suggests. He points this out as he says it could affect his charity the Skyhook Foundation.
“I never said ‘fuck off’ to the child actor [Ross Harris] in Airplane!, nor have I ever said that to any child,” Abdul-Jabbar writes. “I realize this was a shorthand way of showing my perceived aloofness during that time, even though I have often spoken about my intense, almost debilitating shyness. The filmmakers had access to that information, but truth and insight were not on their agenda. Shocking moments were.”
He’s not the only former Laker team member to comment on the show so far. Magic Johnson recently shared his feelings about the series and called out HBO and other executives for not reaching out to a single member of the team while creating Winning Time.
“First of all, you can’t do a story about the Lakers without the Lakers,” says Johnson. “The real Lakers. You gotta have the guys. There’s no way to duplicate Showtime. I don’t care who you get.”
Winning Time is currently airing on HBO and HBO Max. The series has been renewed for a second season.
104 Comments
Really enjoying the show. Funny and super entertaining.
Well sure it is boring to him, he knows everything that is going to happen! I think it is really well cast & well made in all seriousness. Also I appreciate that when Kareem & Magic are at odds you realize that both have valid perspectives. Also I really like Brett Cullen (from Person of Interest) as GM Bill Sharman, the one sane, level-headed person in the Lakers front office, dealing with a bunch of madmen, and Pat Riley
The casting is phenomenal. And it’s definitely not boring.
LISTEN, KID! I’ve been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I’m out there busting my buns every night! Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!
“Roger!”
“Huh?”
Beat me to it.
The fact that the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams are in that scene in that ep made me think that’s how it actually all went down. They would know!
You’re right. The kid clearly had it coming!
Yeah, I find this show breathlessly entertaining. And I think multiple episodes ads up to more layered, compelling characters. Jerry West’s “character” has calmed down now that he is not coaching, validating his brace decision to put his own mental health and marriage ahead of coaching. Magic’s “character” has demonstrated a growing wariness and cynicism carefully hidden under his smile. And the scene between Kareem and Magic’s father in this week’s episode was lovely. This show is terrific, and I am looking forward to more seasons!
Yeah just want to echo that that scene between Kareem and Magic’s father this past week was outrageously good tv. I’m aware that it’s fiction but it felt very real. This show has been good from the beginning but that was a high point for me!
I’m only at ep 3 and I view the show as a cartoon in a lot of ways. I’m guessing the individual scenes are given great creative liberty to tell the story in a more entertaining way but the overall story is correct for the most part…I’m assuming. So, one scene where Kareem tells a kid to fuck off, doesn’t tarnish everything that Kareem has done. He’s an amazing dude. His take on the Will Smith Slap Heard ‘Round The World was exceptional.Jerry West comes off as a nutcase at first but lordy…he’s the logo! He’ll go down as one of the best players/general managers the game has ever seen. I don’t think this show tarnishes that in the least bit.
The overall story is not correct. Jerry West was not a hothead who smashed the trophy. Jeanie Buss did not head up the search for the Laker girls and did not get involved with the team at all until the 90s-2000s. Gaby Hoffmans character never existed. That mob killing was not at all connected to Buss. Pat Riley was already an announcer for two years and was already an assistant around the time the show starts, one can go on, but as I said upthread, biopics often take liberties with the people they depict in order to spice things up.
Correct for the most part is what I said. You’re picking out individual things. Gaby Hoffman’s character did exist. Her name is Claire Rothman.
You yourself should’ve picked out the first part of my post where I said its not correct and its not. Not even “for the most part.” 70% of it “for the most part” is completely made up and/or exaggerated for dramatic effect because its a biopic and that’s just what they do.
The fact that you didn’t know that Gabby Hoffman’s character isn’t a real person kind of tells me you don’t really know what’s going on. 70%? I want some data to back that up. I’m guessing it’s more like 33%. And the truth is…no one knows.
Data? “No one knows?” Are you kidding me? These are well known things to anyone who follows basketball and the Lakers, or can at least take the one second to head on over to Google/Wikipedia this stuff up instead of being willfully ignorant and dumb like you are on here to know that Jeannie Buss did not pick out the Laker girls or was even involved with the day to day management with the team as depicted on the show until the mid 90s? Or that Pat Riley was an already an announcer for the team since 1977 and was already assistant manager by 1979 when the show so that whole bit of him chopping up his shed and auditioning and being ignored/dissed by the team was completely made up by the showrunners?
Or are you really that dense and thick to realize that biopics always take liberties with its source material? Especially when the real life story is not all that interesting and boring and the figures depicted in question don’t cooperate which is now my third time repeating this to you.
Settle down Beavis. I know my Lakers history. I lived through this era. You might want to turn it down a notch.You’re starting to sound like Jerry West.
“Settle down Beavis. I know my Lakers history. I lived through this era”That’s a load of bullshit considering that you admitted to accepting and believing a lot of the fictional stuff this show literally admits to creating in the disclaimer at the beginning of each episode. And its funny you mention Jerry West, because there is another article here at the AV Club with Jerry West accusing the showrunners of denigrating him by making up and exaggerating how much of a drunk hothead he supposedly was. I’m sorry if you’re too stupid to read and understand it.But go on, keep on demonstrating to me that you choose to be willfully ignorant of biopics/docudramas work or of easily researchable facts while stupidly pretending to be a Lakers fan just to win an internet argument.
Gabby Hoffman’s character, Claire Rothman absolutely existed. She was President of the Forum for years
I guess from the perspective of someone who knew all of the real people inside and out, the depth of characterization from a TV show wouldn’t measure up and its leaning into a handful of traits for each of them probably would seem boring by comparison.I know none of these people and so am not expecting a problem.
Yes, it is a well cast/made and interesting show, but he’s right that it isn’t accurate at all. It’s so hilariously inaccurate, that you may as well call it a complete fantasy.But that’s the thing with biopics anyway, they never really are accurate to begin with.
“Well sure it is boring to him, he knows everything that is going to happen!”He actually says this was the reason he hadn’t intended on watching the show. He changed his mind after people kept complaining about inaccuracies. The essay is actually really good, I’d recommend reading. Abdul-Jabbar has written a lot of books, including historical fiction, so he has a very balance nuanced perspective on it.
The casting is pretty great, and I love how humble the actor playing Kareem (Dr. Solomon Hughes) seems behind the scenes. https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-hughes-profile-kareem-abdul-jabbar-winning-time-hbo-1685528
I’m enjoying this but I absolutely thought this was a limited series. Definitely explains why the pacing has felt so odd to me.
Pacing might be better if he actually ran down court.
He’s kinda right. There are ‘complex’ characters, but they don’t really add up. The show makes token attempts at telling us that Buss and Magic are decent people at their core … and does no real work to peel those onions, cause it’s more fun to watch everyone be an asshole. In fact, it seems to be implying that what’ll happen if they get their heads straight is not … being a good person, but just … winning championships? Making money in a smart way rather than a dumb way?It’s a clumsy show that relies on overproduction … but it’s still fun! I’d really just say it’s greatest sin is not being funny.
Some of the chicken fat honking horn overlay crap works. Half the time it just steps on the performances which is really the show’s strongest suit.
I feel that’s his gripe. They actually did a terrific job in casting and Adam has the credentials to be flamboyantly ahistorical, but if they spent just another review in actually rounding the characters more than the overused fourth wall, this could be a real HBO-caliber show. That being said, it’s a great appetizer until the return of Barry.
Watching Kareem in his prime was almost a religious experience. He perfectly blended size, strength, speed and grace. He, not MJ and not LeBron, is the greatest player ever.
But he was a fucking asshole and I grow so weary of him being one of a billion other people trying to claim some mental health bullshit to excuse him being a fucking asshole.
I just loved his freak-out about the Will Smith Oscars episode and the way virtually everyone (literally the only media member I saw mention it even once was Shannon Sharpe) failed to remember how the same fucking hypocrite once tried to end a rookie’s career less than two minutes after it began with one of the more cowardly cheapshots ever committed to film. The open letter Larry O’Brien wrote Kareem to go with his 20-game suspension after he pulled that shit was so much better than Kareem’s letter re: Smith.
WTF are you on about? “Freak-out?” Also, your hyperbole aside (the history of film? really?!?), hitting someone who just hit you – in the midst of a physical contest no less (basketball) – is a bit different from hitting some guy who just told a joke about your wife at an awards show.
Lol, if you truly believe an open hand slap to someone’s face is a bigger deal than a closed fist strike to someone’s temple, as they’re facing in the complete opposite direction, then you’re hopeless. If that’s hyperbole, name a more egregious instance. Possibly Kermit Washington against Rudy Tomjanovich, and of course some hockey episodes, but you don’t get a then-record fine and quarter-season suspension, as your league’s top player, for nothing.
Yes, what Will Smith did was worse. And I don’t need to name any of the (millions of) more egregious instances because you already named some obvious ones for me – and I bet you didn’t even think about it much. If you were to google “cheap shot” you’d come up with plenty more.If you want to know why it’s worse, compare it to all the other Oscars fights that have happened. And then compare what Kareem did to all of the other basketball fights that have happened.Because really, comparing a cheap shot during a basketball game to a cheap shot during the Oscars is like comparing a cheap shot during a boxing match to a cheap shot during a high school debate. As in, they just don’t compare…one is poor sportsmanship, the other is illegal.If you don’t get that then you’re obviously the type of person who believes violence is a valid form of debate and you can fuck right off. Two times.
I don’t see how he’s a hypocrite for something he did decades ago.
The characters are crude stick-figure representations that resemble real people, the way Lego Han Solo resembles Harrison Ford.Thats a pretty well placed burn. LolAlso: He and Magic are both correct in their respective assessments.
I’ve seen The Magic Hour. Magic Johnson is his own crude stick figure.
The Magic Hour taught us that being a great late night talk show guest doesn’t qualify you to be a replacement level late night talk show host.
And now it’s The Harrison Ford Show, with your host Harrison Ford!*he’s asleep at the desk*
Which is solidly in the “Fuck off” Hall of Fame.
Magic is upset because:
A) He wants his own version of The Last Dance where he gets to shape the narrative of his own life and all the greatness he achieved
B) He’s not making any money off “Winning Time”.
He’s getting his version of the Last Dance with the 4-part Apple TV “They Call Me Magic” documentary.
C) His wife keeps asking why he liked to go downstairs so much in the 80s but not now…
Haha great comment. They do find a way to make sure someone is going down on a woman nearly every episode for what seems like too long.
Source: trust me bro
D) It made everyone aware he missed on $5.2 billion from Phil Knight.
Might be less dull if you worked harder on defense.
“…It’s Drearily Dull.” Which is exactly what you would expect Kareem, as depicted in Winning Time, to say. And then he says it in real life.
it’s like poetry, it rhymes
Never a less biased opinion than that of a pro athlete whose story is being told and they’re not getting paid for it.
Bob Ryan in a recent interview said something along the lines of, “I don’t know what Jerry West did to Adam McKay to have him portrayed like that!”
Skimming, I read this as Bob Dylan and was really confused for a second.
Skimming this, I am now reading it as Bob Dylan and am really amused.
YOU READ MY COMMENT AND BECAME BOB DYLAN??!
Could be….maybe the kid from Minnesota followed his Lakers to LA! Okay, I don’t really know if young Bobby Zimmerman was a basketball fan.
Fwiw, Jeff Pearlman (the man who wrote the book this show is loosely based on), had a Twitter exchange several days ago about West’s portrayal. The gist is Ryan thinks its character assassination (typical overreaction from Bob Ryan, who I actually like) while Pearlman accurately points out that while the show is definitely playing up certain traits for comedic and dramatic purposes, West was no saint.
Skimming, I read this as Ron Perlman and was really confused for a second.
It doesn’t look based on the writing and directing credits that he’s involved in the show alot. It has his shtick in parts but it’s not as bad as his past movies.
Basketball writers can be weirdly protective of their favorites.
I disagree with Cap on the characterizations, but I will say, the “creative liberties” taken in the most recent episode were very distracting. The show went too far in trying to generate drama by creating a fake losing streak.
No. No it did not. Lakers had lost 3 of their last 4 road games going into the garden. So, they skipped over home wins to show the team was struggling a little. That’s good writing for the TV series I’m watching, not an 82 part documentary on the season.
You’re an idiot
This is the schedule from that season. McKinney went out after game 14. The team then had 7 of the next 10 on the road which they went 6-4. Going into the post Christmas Boston game, which was at home, Westhead’s record was 16-9. The Lakers then proceeded to blow out Boston and Phoenix at home. This leads into the 5 game road trip that was dramatized as Westhead’s last chance to prove himself and they went 2 and 2 going into the second Boston game with the second best record in the NBA behind Boston, who you just blew out at home.I get that you need to take creative liberties to tell a story, but this was just too much.
After that episode–which was awesome, the whole series is quite good–I found that the entire Lakers/Celtics game is on Youtube…and it was a little disappointing to see that it was much different in real life. (Lakers won in the final seconds, but on Michael Cooper free-throws, and Bob Cousy missing a shot at the buzzer.) But yeah you’re essentially compressing a half-season of tension into one game, so you need to take liberties, and it worked really well as an episode.
God I love this show. It’s not perfect but it’s just what I needed from the series, honestly.The latest episode, where Larry Bird slowly walks down the hall, spitting into a cup, while that song with the refrain “Satan is Real” plays…that has to be one of my favorite fucking scenes in a show in a long while.Maybe I’m just easy to please, but have some good music attached to cool scenes introducing sports figures, along with text flashing on the screen (“YOU KNOW MY FUCKING NAME”) is just…it hits a dopamine center for me. I remember loving the FUCK out of Creed because it would introduce his opponents with their fight sheets up on the screen, I just couldn’t get enough of that.Anyway, here’s your Wendy’s.
(“YOU KNOW MY FUCKING NAME”)
(“LOOK UP THE FUCKING NUMBER!!!”)
Oh yeah? Well how about you tell your TV show to drag Tokyo Vice and Succession up and down the court for 48 minutes!Or, rather, for 58 minutes (it’s not television it’s HBO)
Very interesting, but I don’t understand why the picture is of Roger Murdock, airline pilot.
Say, mumbles…do you like gladiator movies?
Uh oh.
I do hang around the gymnasium.
Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?
I understand where he’s coming from but at the same time, Kareem was also famously and notoriously quite prickly, both with his teammates and especially the fans. The book the series is based on contains, as I recall, numerous instances where Kareem tells autograph seekers to fuck off.I say this as someone who absolutely loves him as player (and is lucky enough to actually have his autograph).
He just seems very wary around pretty much everyone. Every time I see him on TV he looks like he wants to be somewhere else.
I believe Kareem when he says he never told a kid to fuck off. Not his style. But by his own admission, he was prickly and standoffish for quite awhile.
I was that kid. He absolutely didn’t tell me to fuck off.
Dude, what’s it like being in one of the greatest comic scenes in cinematic history?Also, how many takes did Kareem need?
If you are really the kid actor, you’re my second favorite poster on this network of websites- second only to Glenn Greenwald (who I don’t agree with much but am just amused at how he posts on Gizmodo and other sites)
Proof
With good reason, people are fucking scum and fans are the worst.
But is having an autograph really better than having the long-term resentment of being told to fuck off from someone you admired?
When real people get pissy because they weren’t able to exert their will over media about them, it’s usually a good sign for the movie/show/book.
so many of the comments here are absolutely ridiculous and white privileged, just like the “core fanbase” of NBA basketball that the Lakers and other teams targeted..
This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read
Drearily dull is too harsh. His points about caricatures over characters are more valid. But even then, I’m not sure if he’s watched every episode or just the first because as the season has gone along, there’s been more fleshing out of specifics characters so you’re going a bit beyond just a “caricature’.
But I also don’t think the show is going for anything super deep or insightful. The show is fun, especially if you’re a fan of the NBA. They are definitely taking liberties with a lot of the facts and timeline, that is true. But some of the character beats are based in reality. For example,Pat Riley was an aimless beach guy post-playing career looking for purpose. But unlike the show, he was already an announcer for like 2 years before the season this show is about and was already an assistant when this actual season started.I’m not saying Kareem is wrong. Some of his points have merit. It’s a well written piece (as all his work is) but despite his protest that he doesn’t mean it that way, it still comes off more as an athlete saying this isn’t accurate so its trash.
I was that child actor. Kareem absolutely did not tell me to fuck off. We had zero interactions off camera. He was exactly as he describes himself. Extremely shy and focused on the task at hand. I’m enjoying the show though.
This show is overproduced and overdirected as fuck, the recent portrayal of Westhead ‘taking command’ of the team by yelling pointlessly was ridiculous, and it is absolutely one of the funnest and most entertaining shows on TV. It helps a lot that it is an absolute murderer’s row of acting talent. Reilly, Jason Clarke, Rob Morgan, TRACY LETTS, Wood Harris, SALLY FUCKING FIELD??? All the way down the the line and really enjoying Solomon Hughes and Quincy Isaiah as Kareem and Magic, respectively. Boring, it ain’t. And I don’t give two shits about the NBA.
Fitting that he continues his streak of absolutely terrible takes.
I don’t think of it as dull, it’s more like a lot of flash without substance. The flash is fun to watch but I don’t find myself thinking about the show much after episodes finish. And it’s because Kareem is right about the characters – they’re mostly one-note and not really that interesting. What’s interesting is the setting / concept of the show and how it is filmed / edited together.
I’ve been loving it. Not surprised to see the players hating it…it doesn’t paint them in the best light. I’d imagine the truth is somewhere in between.
Magic probably doesn’t like that they made his character a slut. He did get Aids from fooling around alot even when married so it makes sense.
Elvis played a chopper pilot one time. He made so many darn mistakes, we were just laughing at him.
I love this sleazy show! Also I know it’s crazy but Quincy Isaiah looks like Pete Davidson.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a national treasure. That’s literally all I came here to say.
The one and only known of his kind sits in a throneNot for the records that he holdsBut for bein’ bald and boldKareem Abdul-Jabbar, all-time great super, superstar
His whole essay on the topic is great, I’d encourage people to read it. It’s a very well thought out and nuanced take on the topic that goes beyond “they got things wrong,” although he definitely goes into that too.
I’m pleasantly surprised that Kareem turned out to be such a great writer … you know … considering how he never worked hard enough on defense.
Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!
I can’t stand basketball. I mean, I really have no interest in it whatsoever. That said, I do really like this show and Kareem’s character is certainly one of the best parts of the show. Not knowing any history about the Lakers or the sport in general, I’m 100% sure someone smacks Jerry West right in the chops. Can’t wait until that happens.
I really don’t like watching sports but I’m a sucker for sports stories. Going back to Howard Liss’ Giant Book of Strange but True Sports Stories published in 1976 in which we learned about Groucho Marx playing golf in his boxers, Titanic Thompson and others. I loved (the book) The Blind Side and Moneyball natch and whatever other sports movies but I have no idea who even played in Superbowl 2022. Probably New England?
Well, they can’t all be the revival season of Veronica Mars. Wish I knew enough about this show to make a “just wait until X gets blown up in the season finale” joke.
I consider “Winning Time” more of a business class case study than factual entertainment. Bringing Hollywood to a sport that ran a distant 3rd to football and baseball was a brilliant move. A move that has been emulated by the NFL. Unfortunately, MLB takes its marketing cues from the minor leagues.
Paul Westhead must be furious over his portrayal too. Made to look totally inept as a coach and a human being
This show is anything but dull. And I find its portrayal of Jabbar to be one of the most nuanced of any I have seen on television. It gives plenty of room for Jabbar’s perspective while maintaining that, regardless of his reasons, he wasn’t a great hang.