Despite the ravages of time, there still remains a large public appetite to revisit the Lakers dynasty of the 1980s led by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The Magic Man was queried about HBO’s upcoming Adam McKay-produced series on the 1980s Showtime Lakers, “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.”
John C. Reilly will play Dr. Jerry Buss, the late legendary owner of the Lakers, and Johnson will be featured prominently, which does not please the icon.
Johnson looked as if the question had a bad odor to it.
“I’m not looking forward to it. I’m going to leave it at that,” Johnson said forcefully to TMZ.
One of the reasons Johnson may not be pleased is that he is already made it publicly known that he plans to produce his own documentary on his time with the Lakers. Moreover, current owner Jeannie Buss has also said she is planning a similar TV project on the Lakers.
So this may be a case of flooding the market on this one topic. This might be why Johnson gestured in the negative when asked if he will watch the HBO series.
“No,” he simply said.
There is also the concern that the HBO doc will spend a lot of time on Johnson’s reputation as a relentless partyer, something that Johnson has tried to downplay in recent years.
