HBO just told us that they won’t make any more of the show called ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.’ This happened right after they showed the last episode of season two on Sunday night. It was unexpected.
Co-creator Max Borenstein shared his feelings on X: “Not the ending that we had in mind. But nothing but gratitude and love.”
Director Salli Richardson posted on Instagram: “When you give it everything you’ve got, you can have no regrets. I hope you enjoy the last episode of Winning Time HBO I am sure I will do many more hours of TV and hopefully many features in my future, but I can say that at this moment in time I am most proud of the work we did on this masterful show.”
In an interview conducted with THR in late August, Richardson shared hopes for a third season, “Obviously, you see how the season ends. So we would love to have, at the very least, even though we can do this for years, one more season so that we can get the Lakers winning against the Celtics. We don’t want to end with the Celtics winning. That’s awful,” she told THR. “I think people have realized this season that if you just watch the show instead of judging the show without seeing it, it’s a great show. It’s a well-written show with unbelievable performances. And you don’t have to be a basketball fan to enjoy it. I think that what Jeff was trying to say is that he just hopes that people find this little gem that’s out there, because it really is a great show and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
The show started in March 2022 and is all about the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and how they became successful in the early 1980s.
The first season showed Jerry Buss’ first year as the team’s owner and Magic Johnson’s rookie year in 1979-80. The second season is about what happened in the four years after that.
In response, HBO told The Hollywood Reporter that the network “has a long history of producing compelling content drawn from actual facts and events that are fictionalized in part for dramatic purposes. Winning Time is not a documentary and has not been presented as such. However, the series and its depictions are based on extensive factual research and reliable sourcing, and HBO stands resolutely behind our talented creators and cast who have brought a dramatization of this epic chapter in basketball history to the screen.”
Former Lakers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson didn’t like the show either. Abdul-Jabbar called it ‘boring’ and said the characters looked like ‘crude stick-figure representations’ of real people.
