After being asked last week by former Los Angeles Lakers executive Jerry West for a retraction and apology for “an unfounded and malicious attack” on his character, HBO instead issued a statement on Tuesday citing his series “Winning.” Time” defended, saying their “dramatization” is “based “on extensive factual research and reliable sourcing.”
West’s attorneys last week claimed that “Winning Time misrepresented and cruelly portrayed Mr. West as a runaway, drunken rage-aholic,” saying that “bearing no resemblance to the real man.” In the letter, which ESPN sent to HBO and series producer Adam McKay on April 19, West’s attorneys asked for a retraction no later than two weeks after receiving the letter.
HBO provided its response Tuesday in a statement originally given to The Hollywood Reporter and later obtained by ESPN.
“HBO has a long history of producing compelling content that is drawn from actual facts and events, in part fictionalized for dramatic purposes,” the network said in its statement. “’Winning Time’ is not a documentary and has not been presented as such. However, the series and its portrayals are based on exhaustive factual research and reliable sourcing, and HBO stands unequivocally behind our talented creators and cast, who have brought a dramatization of this epic chapter in basketball history to the big screen.”
West’s attorneys said HBO’s disclaimer that the series was a dramatization did not absolve the network of liability.
The series, which aired Sunday nights on HBO this spring, is based on author Jeff Pearlman’s book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s.
West’s attorneys alleged that the show’s creators acted with “legal malice” because many scenes in the show depicting West’s alleged anger did not appear in Pearlman’s book and did not happen. The letter includes testimony from former players such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper, and Jamaal Wilkes, and Lakers employees such as Claire Rothman, Charlene Kenney, Bob Steiner, and Mitch Kupchak, who worked with West during the period covered by the show, and denies that they have ever seen him commit any of the angry acts or drinking alcohol in the office as portrayed in the series.
“Rather than examining his issues with compassion to better understand the man, they turn him into a Wile E. Coyote cartoon to poke fun at,” Abdul-Jabbar said in a statement. “He never broke golf clubs, he never threw his trophy through the window. Sure, these actions make for dramatic moments, but they smack more of frivolous exploitation of the man than character exploration.”
West’s attorneys said he deserves a recantation, apology and damages from HBO and the show’s producers because “the show goes out of its way to disparage Jerry West despite his accomplishments as an executive.”
ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne contributed to this report.