‘Winning Time’ Co-Creator on That Shocking and “Absolutely True” Unsolved Event in Episode 3
[Warning: This story contains spoilers for episode three, “The Best Is Yet to Come,” of Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.]
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty co-creator Jim Hecht is confident a lot of viewers hopped on Google at the end of the most recent episode to see if that wild event actually happened.
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It did. And Hecht is honest when he admits he was just as shocked to learn of it during the HBO limited series’ development.
Victor Weiss was violently murdered in 1979 after meeting with Lakers owner Jerry Buss to close the deal that would have brought friend and client Jerry Tarkanian — men’s basketball coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas — to the Lakers. Authorities suspect the murder was the mob’s doing. Winning Time implies the hit was carried out to keep Tarkanian at UNLV.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Hecht before the premiere of Winning Time’s third episode, “The Best Is Yet to Come” to go over a few key moments of the chapter — directed by Damian Marcano and penned by Max Borenstein, Rodney Barnes and Hecht — including that brutal conclusion.
Why did you want to get a piece of episode three on the writing side?
Pat Riley. It is the introduction of Pat Riley [played by Adrien Brody], along with how the episode ends, those two really crazy parts of our story. Everyone thinks of Pat Riley as the coach of the Lakers, but he starts the decade wandering the beach, trying to figure out what he is going to do with his life.
Is there a particular moment in this episode that is your favorite?
The ending, for sure. And also, when Riley isn’t allowed into the Forum [during the head coach search], the security guard tells him, “No former players.” That’s a true story. He showed them his 1972 Championship ring, and they’re like, “No former players.”
This episode gives far more insight into your Jerry West (Jason Clarke) and his love-hate relationship with the game. Why is that important to understand?
I don’t even know if people know that Jerry West was the coach and that he quit. The depiction we have of Jerry West is what you have when you treat depression and childhood trauma with basketball or any other outside factor. It is always an inside job. So, it was him either trying to kick it or fix it.
Can you talk about the importance of that thread with your Magic being utterly naive as to what he was getting himself into, which leads to him being promiscuous?
There are two great moments that didn’t make it into the episode. We tried and tried, but they didn’t really fit. The first was when Magic arrives at LAX. Buss didn’t pick him up. He sent a Playboy Playmate as the limo driver. And the other was when Magic is on his way to the apartment. He saw orange trees in front yards. He made the driver pull over, got out and picked the fruit, like, “This is incredible.” Just the imagery of him with the fruit and the tree and the playmate and the first time in L.A., I thought it was really rich.
When they talk about addiction, which I do a lot, having been in recovery for more than 20 years, they talk about it as fun, fun with problems, and then just all problems. Here is a kid, 19 years old. He has the eyes of the world on him, with the pressure of carrying a team on the world’s biggest stage. And he doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t do drugs. How do you manifest that stress? Then there is all that access as he becomes a rock star.
The ending is shocking and really highlights how much bigger this story is than just basketball. Safe to say a lot of people are going to Google that for accuracy, you think?
This murder has never been solved by the police. I didn’t know, as a huge Lakers fan, that Jerry Tarkanian had been hired! They did the contracts. It was a done deal. I didn’t know about what happened to Victor Weiss, being stuffed into his trunk. It’s all absolutely true.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
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