Winnin' Slimed

 So I see on the interwhatsis that Jerry West is suing HBO over its limited series "Winning Time", and all I have to say is, what took him so long? A proud man seeing his life turned into a cartoon is grounds for a street application of a Flagrant 2 foul, not just some suits throwing paper around.

The Blob has been riveted to "Winning Time," Adam McKay's odd little fairy tale about the early days of the 1980s Showtime Lakers, but for entertainment purposes only. Anyone who takes anything in it seriously probably also thinks Wile E. Coyote really survived being repeatedly blown to bits by Acme explosives.

That's all "Winning Time" is, after all: Just another Saturday morning cartoon. 

As Kareem Abdul-Jabbar astutely pointed out in his takedown of the series, there was a compelling story to be told here, one with equal parts pathos and humor. McKay just chose not to tell that story. He opted for Porky Pig hunting that wascally wabbit instead.

Everything in it is either wrong or outlandishly exaggerated in order to get laughs. If Jerry Buss were truly as much a buffoon as John C. Reilly portrays him, he'd never have gotten in the door of the NBA owners club. Kareem never told a kid on the set of "Airplane" to f*** off. Paul Westhead was never a cowering, Shakespeare-quoting boob, and, come on, Adrien Brody as Pat Riley? Really?

But it's the portrayal of West with which McKay takes the most license.

He has well-credentialed Australian actor Jason Clarke play West entirely for laughs as a drunken, micro-fused lunatic. See Jerry fly into a rage and break his golf clubs! See him throw his NBA Finals MVP trophy into the hallway! See him ranting and raving in a taxi outside Boston Garden while listening to the Lakers play the Celtics!

(Although the line of the series so far is West looking at Boston through the car window and saying, "Paul Revere should have slept in. They should have let the British burn this f***hole to the ground." Not that he ever actually said that.)

In any case ... he's Jerry West! He's Yosemite Sam! Two, two, two toons in one!

Little wonder, then, that West and his kin are deploying the lawyers. The wonder is how McKay could have been so bone stupid as to turn people who actually are still living into punchlines.

You're literally begging for defamation suits when you do that, which is why you don't do it. Surely McKay's smart enough to know that, although the evidence surely is lacking in this case. If you're going to turn real events into satiric farce, at least have the good sense to fictionalize the characters along with the storyline.

Hollywood does this all the time, and in fact McKay did it in "Don't Look Up," his recent sendup of climate-change denial. He turned climate change into a comet about to hit Earth dead-on, turned Meryl Streep into a thinly-veiled female Donald Trump, turned Jonah Hill into an equally thinly-veiled Fredo Trump (i.e., Donald Trump Jr.). 

So why not turn the Los Angeles Lakers into, I don't know, the Las Vegas Zephyrs? Turn the charismatic Magic Johnson from Lansing, Mich., into the charismatic Dazzle Wilson from Peoria, Ill.? Turn Dr. Jerry Buss into Dr. Mike "Mikey" Jones -- and turn Jerry West into Zephyrs legend Dick Bledsoe?

Or, you know, something like that.

Instead "Winning Time" is now Winning Slimed, as far as West and Kareem and a bunch of others who were there are concerned. Shoulda gone with Dick Bledsoe, Mr. McKay.

Or, what the hell, Yosemite Sam.

Although then Warner Bros. would probably be suing HBO, too.