Ever since the NBA’s popularity started to grow amongst the masses, the league has become the subject of various documentaries, movies and TV shows. These media features either cover the stories of individual players or the entire team with which they would be associated. Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is the latest show that has been making waves amongst NBA enthusiasts.

As the show commenced its second season a few weeks ago, the director of the latest episode shares his opinion regarding the portrayal of characters.

‘Winning Time’ director hopes that the Lakers legends will watch the new season

A few days ago, the Hollywood Reporter conducted an interview with Todd Banhazl, a cinematographer who has worked on the show since its inception. Banzahl was recently given the opportunity to direct the latest episode of ‘Winning Time’, which highlights the beginning of the feud between Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird and Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson.

During the Q and A session, the interviewer Brance Victorian highlighted the dissatisfaction that the former NBA players, who were the subject of this show, felt in regard to their portrayal in the show. This led him to ask Banhazl whether their viewpoints have changed with the commencement of the second season.

The cinematographer replied that he doesn’t know how the Lakers legends feel about the latest season, but he hopes that they have gotten to like it.

“I do know that our intentions have always been to represent these characters with the most grace and empathy possible,” said Banhazl during the interview.

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The cinematographer emphasized that “letting these characters grow and showing all of the incredible things that happened during their lives” is the goal through the lens to which the program continues to operate.

Magic, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jerry West expressed their frustration with the HBO show

With an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.3/10 rating on IMDB, the first season of the show opened up to mostly positive reviews from viewers and NBA fans. The one group of viewers who were not satisfied with the season were those who were the subject of it.

During an interview with Variety last year, 64-year-old Magic Johnson touched on Winning Time. He expressed his bafflement at how neither HBO nor the creative executives of the show chose to seek any participation from the then Lakers stars.

“First of all, you can’t do a story about the Lakers without the Lakers,” said Johnson during the interview, “The real Lakers. You gotta have the guys.”

According to the five-time NBA champion, a show that is covering the iconic Showtime era of the ’80s needs to gain some firsthand perspective from the people who lived it. Otherwise, the efforts would be worthless. “There’s no way to duplicate Showtime. I don’t care who you get,” Johnson concluded.

Another former Lakers legend who joined in on the criticism is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He published a whole Substack post titled, ‘Winning Time Isn’t Just Deliberately Dishonest, It’s Drearily Dull’. 85-year-old Jerry West has gone so far as to demand a retraction and an apology from the HBO show for being portrayed as an “out-of-control, intoxicated rage-aholic.”

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What are your thoughts on the show and how it has portrayed the ’80s Lakers? Let us know in the comments!