HBO's 'Winning Time' savages Jerry West. Here's why it's ugly but it's not out of line

It’s not a documentary.

That’s the go-to line whenever people complain that a feature film or TV series about real people or real events doesn’t portray them with exact historical accuracy.

It sounds like a copout. Which, in some cases, maybe it is a little bit.

But it’s also true. Fictionalized portrayals are just that. They're meant for entertainment, not fact-checking. Sometimes that gets messy, but it's not wrong.

The furor over the portrayal of Jerry West in “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” whose finale airs on HBO at 9 p.m. Arizona time on Sunday, May 8, is the latest example, and the most intense I remember seeing, at least since Oliver Stone’s “JFK” came out in 1991.

It’s just the most controversial portrayal currently available on the various streaming services floating around out there.

“The Staircase,” in which Colin Firth plays a writer police believe killed his wife (if you don’t know the story, no sense in spoiling it), is an HBO Max dramatization of a well-known and well-documented case. But Michael Peterson, whom Firth plays, is a real person.

Elizabeth Holmes probably isn't a fan of 'The Dropout'

So is Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of ill-fated Theranos. Her life is the subject of “The Dropout” on Hulu. I don’t know if she’s seen it — it’s quite good — but if so she probably didn’t sit around thinking, wow, Amanda Seyfried gets my dance moves down just right.

There’s also “WeCrashed” on Apple TV+, which isn’t exactly a flattering portrayal of WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann, played to the dramatic hilt and then some by Jared Leto (because that’s how Jared Leto plays people).

Then there is “Super Pumped,”about the founding of Uber, in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Travis Kalanick. Kalanick comes off like a jerk, though he would use another description, by design.

Creative license isn’t anything new. The 2015 movie “Steve Jobs” was a lot more interesting for Michael Fassbender’s portrayal of the Apple co-founder than for its adherence to accuracy.

The point, always, is to get to the truth of the character, and sometimes fictionalized portrayals are a lot better at that than a straight-up retelling of a life or event.

But whew. Nothing in memory has stoked outrage like “Winning Time.”

The series is based on the book “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980." Magic, Kareem and Riley are all there, but it's West's portrayal that's grabbing headlines.

West is portrayed by Jason Clarke in the series as an “out-of-control, intoxicated rage-aholic,” his attorney says in a letter to Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO and Adam McKay and Kevin Messick, the producers of the series.

The fact that he has an attorney asking for a retraction, apology and unspecified damages tells you something about how West feels about it, and he’s not the only one.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Lakers great, wrote a predictably thoughtful Substack post in which he points out that he loves “The Great,” which has about as much relation to actual history as a “Simpsons” episode in which Homer reminisces about the ’80s. But he also provides an excellent critique of the "Winning Time" (I say that even though I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s really well written).

“Instead of exploring his issues with compassion as a way to better understand the man,” he writes, “they turn him into a Wile E. Coyote cartoon to be laughed at.”

Why is Jerry West upset about winning time?

If you haven’t gotten the idea, people are ticked. The difference in this portrayal and those of the start-up quasi-villains is that he’s not hated by seemingly anyone. People don’t just like Jerry West. They love Jerry West.

I love Jerry West. When I was a kid I attended Jerry West Basketball Camp in the summers. West would show up for an hour or so during the week-long camp, put on an awesome shooting display and talk about his career, the importance of practice, that kind of thing.

(I always assumed he spent the whole week there and I just didn’t see him, 'til I got a little older and realized the chances of him spending Sunday through Friday at Virginia Military Institute, where the camp was held, were pretty remote.)

I also liked “Winning Time.”

And never once did I expect it to be a by-the-letter portrayal of anything, much less of West.

The series puts a disclaimer up at the beginning of each episode: “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.”

Whether that absolves them of legal responsibility will be decided by far greater minds than mine. But I didn’t really need it, either. I don’t look at the hyper-stylized projects McKay makes as substitutes for a history lesson.

West has been open about his struggles with depression and mental-health issues. He also acknowledges being hyper-competitive, something those who have been around him have talked and written about for a long time. I don’t doubt that it’s painful for him to see his kind of portrayal.

But it’s just that, a portrayal. Subtly is not exactly a hallmark of the series; Abdul-Jabbar is right about that. It captures the overall vibe of the era and the team. Could they have toned down Clarke’s portrayal of West and still gotten the point across?

Of course. Screaming and breaking golf clubs isn’t a substitute for complexity. But that’s a dramatic shortcoming, one that McKay and the people who made the show are within their rights to make.

“Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty"

9 p.m. Sunday on HBO.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

Subscribe to azcentral.com today. What are you waiting for?

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Jerry West comes off terribly in HBO's 'Winning Time.' Why that's OK