‘Winning Time’ canceled by HBO following Season 2

Christopher Rosen
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It was a twist ending fans of “Winning Time” certainly didn’t appreciate.

While it was promoted as the season finale on social media, the HBO series about the Los Angeles Lakers’ ‘80s dynasty ended its run on Sunday night, with a final episode that detailed the Lakers’ crushing loss to the Boston Celtics in the 1984 NBA Finals and then featured an epilogue focused on all the future successes the show won’t dramatize for series television. Shortly after the finale ended, it was revealed HBO had canceled “Winning Time” after two seasons.

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The epilogue, which noted that the Lakers defeated their archrival in 1985 and then again in 1987, was preceded by a scene featuring Dr. Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly) and his daughter, Jeannie Buss (Hadley Robinson), where the elder Buss consoled the youngster that everything would work out despite the finals defeat because, in part, “we fucking own this.”

According to executive producer Kevin Messick, that sequence was actually shot in January of this year — months before the premiere of “Winning Time” Season 2 — as a failsafe in case the show’s ratings fortunes didn’t improve. 

“There were never any guarantees in today’s marketplace of a subsequent season, so the planning for the ‘What if’ scenario — if this was not just a season finale but the series finale — was from the conversation we had back in January while we were still in production,” Messick said to Vulture. “We got a call from HBO, whom we’ve been partnered with for years. They said, ‘Think about it so that you have the option while you’re still in production to figure out how it might end if, sadly, that was the end of it.’ So we did get a chance to prepare, which we appreciated. But to be clear, we never planned creatively to end at the ’84 finals.”

Messick said both Reilly, who received great acclaim for his performance as Dr. Buss throughout the series, and Robinson were made aware the scene between their characters was a possible series capper.

“We shot that in January. It was a new scene created to directly address the question that HBO gave us. Then there’s an epilogue that runs with shots from the show that is, I think, powerful and emotional,” Messick said. “It charts the successes of everybody that you’ve met along the way. It could have run at the end of any season. But it works no matter how long we got to make the story because the success and the accomplishments of each of our characters are true no matter what year it airs.”

“Winning Time” debuted with great fanfare in the spring of last year but the show never took off in the zeitgeist the way HBO and its creative team probably envisioned. But despite a somewhat controversial first season, which had Lakers greats like Jerry West (played by Jason Clarke) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (played by Solomon Hughes) calling the show out, “Winning Time” returned seemingly reinvigorated for Season 2. The seven episodes in the second and now final season tracked the Lakers’ ups and downs after winning the 1979-1980 NBA title, and gave stars like Quincy Isaiah (who played Magic Johnson) and Adrien Brody (who played coach Pat Riley) strong material with which to work.

While fans of the show – this writer included – posted on social media in dismay about the series coming to an end before its time, the writing had been on the wall for a while. Author Jeff Pearlman, who wrote the book on which “Winning Time” was based, suggested in early September that “Winning Time” was in trouble because of its ratings.

In his interview with Vulture, Messick said the ratings for Season 2 didn’t improve despite the solid Season 2 reviews and agreed that the actors’ strike was a tough hurdle for the series to overcome. “We were able to do our junket right before the strike, but we have a big ensemble cast — the Oscar-winning movie stars and new actors — that are all exciting to talk to when you promote a show like ours,” he said. “It’s not centered on one person. We have a lot of assets to help promote the show and we weren’t able to employ any of them. Yeah, that was definitely a frustration for us.”

Messick didn’t rule out the potential for another network or platform to pick up “Winning Time,” but said it wasn’t something the producers were going to necessarily pursue actively. “If the universe wants more Lakers, the universe knows where to reach us,” he said.

Despite its premature conclusion, Season 2 of “Winning Time” will be eligible for the 2024 Emmy Awards as a drama series. All episodes of the show are streaming on Max.

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