Kareem Abdul-Jabbar absolutely HATES Winning Time

Kareem is salty and probably correct, but we love the show too much to care

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A.J. Reilly: Good old Kareem who hates Winning Time, who called it boring, unfunny and untrue. Now, out of full transparency, I have not seen the last two episodes that have been released because they’re released on Sunday nights, right? Yep. So the last one I’ve seen is where the coach had the bike accident.

Okay. That’s the last one that I’ve seen, but I am going to catch up. I wonder why Kareem thinks that it’s boring, unfunny and untrue. Is it because of the way that he is portrayed? A not so nice and welcoming player, to the star of the show Magic Johnson. A little bitterness maybe? 

Ryan Griffin: I think there is. Now Kareem and his sub stack or the article that he wrote, the blog that he wrote, whatever you want to call it.

He mentioned, I’ve dealt with civil rights issues, I’ve dealt with racism, I’ve dealt with X, Y, and Z, so nothing that a TV show could say is going to hurt my feelings or, phase me in any way. 

But he does go out of his way specifically to say, I never told that kid on the set of Airplane to F off, there’s other things that they’ve said that I’ve done that just aren’t true. 

A lot of the beef that he does pick out, does seem to just be the storytelling in general and how people are portrayed. He doesn’t go so much into himself, like at least in his article. He does mention that a lot of these guys feel like they’re caricatures. 

A.J. Reilly: He can’t though right? He can’t sit there and go, man, they portrayed me so horribly. They made me look like the biggest jerk of all time. Like then people are going to be like, Kareem, really man? You’re proving them right because you’re making it all about yourself. You’re making it about the guy that goes to the coach and says, I’ll get 30 in 10 and we’ll win the game.

That is, he can’t say that. So he’s got to find this way to say, it’s the storytelling and it’s this and it’s that. It’s an HBO series that is meant for entertainment and it’s quite entertaining. 

Ryan Griffin: Yeah, I like it a lot. So I am on the side where I’m sorry, Kareem but I’m pretty amped up about it.  I think we’re at least getting season two of it. 

I was wondering when one of these guys from the era were going to break their silence on it because obviously Magic hasn’t said anything about it. Jeanie Buss hasn’t said anything about it. Just to hear one of the centerpieces of the show and of the Lakers dynasty finally come out and say something about it. And I knew they were going to say, this stuff is all baloney because it doesn’t portray a lot of them in such a great light.

I’d say Pat Riley, you’re not at that part yet, Pat Riley probably has the most favorable portrayal of any of these guys. Also, the show is also based on a book and Matt’s reading the book. I haven’t read the book so I don’t know how many of these stories are directly pulled from that source material. So I guess if Kareem’s going to have a beef with somebody, it might not even be the show necessarily.

Maybe you should focus your attention on the book first and then see how that stacks up with what HBO has given us. I kinda knew this was coming to a point but I didn’t know Kareem would be the one to do it. 

A.J. Reilly: Yeah. It’s Hollywood. At the end of the day, it’s Hollywood, right? So things are going to be exaggerated, it’s for entertainment value. So of course, if they told the exact true story of what happened during those years, they’re probably not getting the reaction of, this is so great, it’s so fun because you’ve got to exaggerate. 

In Hollywood, it’s going to happen. And if anybody should understand it, it’s the guys that literally played in Hollywood during that time. So Kareem, let it be what it is. It’s a form of entertainment. It’s not a documentary, so it doesn’t have to be a hundred percent factual.

It just has to be a hundred percent entertaining, which it is. 

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