‘A total mischaracterization’: Portrayal of Jerry West in HBO’s ‘Winning Time’ sparks criticism
By Bill Oram
Mar 9, 2022
Gary Vitti spent two days last year as an actor and in-house expert on the set of “Winning Time.”
That was enough.
When those two days ended, producers offered to hire the longtime Lakers athletic trainer for another three days of work on the HBO series that chronicles the 1980s Lakers dynasty.
He declined.
“I said I don’t want to be a part of this,” Vitti told The Athletic.
He said he left about $15,000 on the table by walking away from the project, a move that helps underscore the angst over the series among people who were part of the Showtime Lakers era. “Winning Time,” which will have a 10-episode run, debuted on Sunday and was seen by approximately 900,000 viewers across all HBO platforms.
It is a dramatized account, but one that is based on author Jeff Pearlman’s 2014 bestseller “Showtime,” a heavily-researched work of nonfiction. So while the backbone of the show is based on real events, it offers plenty of embellishments.
For people who were around the Lakers in the early ’80s, those might include minor details like Jerry West’s office not having a window for him to throw a trophy through — which happens in the pilot episode — or then-Lakers general manager Bill Sharman speaking in a full voice when in reality a vocal cord injury meant he spoke barely above a whisper. In the show, owner Dr. Jerry Buss negotiates a job with the Lakers for his daughter, Jeanie, in 1979, when she would have been 17.
In real life, Jeanie Buss, now the team’s governor and top executive, didn’t get hired by her dad until 1981, and even then it was to run the Los Angeles Strings of World Team Tennis. She wasn’t hired by the Lakers until 1995.
While those might be chalked up as the cost of making TV magic, questions have been sparked among some former Lakers, like Vitti, about the limits of editorial license with what is largely a true story. And while the Lakers are currently mired in a spectacularly dreadful season — Losing Time, anyone? — the existence of the HBO series has not surprisingly caused a lot of consternation in the actual world it represents.
After decades embracing their role as Hollywood’s team, members of the Lakers organization past and present are getting a taste of what it means to be on the receiving end of Hollywood’s lens.
The biggest point of contention for Vitti and others is the characterization of West, the former Lakers guard and executive who served as the team’s head coach for three years through 1979.
West is seen angrily snapping a golf club, delivering profanity-laced tirades against Sharman and Dr. Buss, and generally being portrayed as a hard-drinking lunatic — something those who knew him in those days strongly refute.
“It was a total mischaracterization of Jerry West,” Vitti said.
Mitch Kupchak, who spent 31 years in the Lakers front office after retiring as a player in 1986, told The Athletic he had not seen the show but had viewed clips depicting West.
“The guy in the show playing Jerry and the Jerry I worked with for 14 years is not the same guy,” said Kupchak, now the Charlotte Hornets president of basketball operations. “Jerry was passionate but never lost his temper and threw things. Never. I would know.”
Another former Lakers executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the show has not only “done a grave injustice to Jerry … but a huge disservice to the show’s viewers, who will think that it’s a true and accurate portrayal of reality.”
West holds a unique place in the history of the Lakers as well as the league. His silhouette as a player was the model for the NBA logo, but as an executive is regarded as one of the top talent evaluators in NBA history. After leaving the Lakers bench in 1979 he went on to a distinguished career in the Lakers front office, helping assemble the Showtime teams and is credited for signing Shaquille O’Neal and drafting Kobe Bryant in the transformational summer of 1996. West retired from the Lakers in 2000 after the team won the championship.
That all occurred well after the period “Winning Time” depicts.
Vitti, who did not join the Lakers until 1984, worked as an actor on the series, donning a ’70s era wig and fake sideburns to play a scout. His presence is something of an Easter egg for discerning fans who might recognize the guy who spent all those years next to Pat Riley on the Lakers bench, taping ankles and famously treating a cut on Magic Johnson’s forearm without gloves on after Johnson had been diagnosed with HIV.
But before he was given a part and sent off to makeup, he had been recruited by former Lakers player Rick Fox to consult on the show and spent several hours with producers discussing the project. And they later bought several copies of Vitti’s self-published book about his Lakers career.
Once filming began and he raised objections about how West and others were being depicted, producers reminded him that it was a dramatization, not a documentary.
Vitti’s counter was that viewers have no way to know where the truth stopped and the Hollywood storytelling began.
West, now 83 and a consultant with the Clippers, declined to comment on the series. The Lakers also have not responded to elements of the show, saying only through a spokesman that they are “not supporting nor involved with this project.”
That is something the show makes clear from the earliest moment of the pilot when a disclaimer appears on the screen: “This series is a dramatization of certain facts and events. Some of the names have been changed and some of the events and characters have been fictionalized, modified or composited for dramatic purposes.”
People who worked with West in the era the show celebrates — and to be clear, it is, largely, a celebration of a basketball dynasty — acknowledge that West can be a colorful curser in private conversations, is widely regarded as regal and contemplative. A gentleman.
“This show has zero hint of a gentleman,” one former Lakers employee said. In “Winning Time,” the ex-employee said, “all he does is curse and he’s mad all the time.”
In the show, which is executive produced by Academy Award-nominated director Adam McKay, West makes his debut on the golf course. Played by Jason Clarke, he is introduced with a graphic that reads, “Jerry West, has never been happy.”
It’s a characterization that few who know West would disagree with, but one they say is misrepresented on the screen.
“I’ve known the man for 38 years and never saw him lose it,” Vitti said. “If anything, he internalized everything.”
West has spoken and written extensively about his history with depression.
Vitti described meetings in West’s office where it would be completely dark except for one small Tiffany desk lamp.
“He’s shrouded in darkness and depression,” Vitti said, “not banging and yelling and screaming and taking it out on other people. That wasn’t him.”
In other words, he was the tortured, rather than the torturer he is portrayed as in the series.
Vitti also struggled with other elements of the show, including a scene he appears in where Jerry Buss jumps up on a desk and, Vitti said, says anyone who wasn’t committed to winning a championship could “get the fuck out.”
“Dr. Buss never talked to anybody that way,” Vitti said.
It was at that point that Vitti said he called Fox, who consulted on the series, and told him he wasn’t going to continue on the show.
Vitti said producers were understanding and he left without hard feelings. He stayed in touch with actors including Brett Cullen, who plays Sharman, and gave him tips on an orthopedic issue he was dealing with.
Then on Sunday night, Vitti settled in front of the television of his Manhattan Beach home. Throughout the hour-long pilot, Vitti’s wife peppered him with questions about what was real and what wasn’t.
Most viewers don’t have a personal fact-checker at their disposal.
“I watched it,” Vitti said, “and if I didn’t know any better, I probably would have liked it. It’s entertaining. It really was.”
— The Athletic’s Sam Amick contributed reporting to this story
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(Photo of Pat Riley and Jerry West: Focus on Sport / Getty Images)
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