There’s a sweet bit of irony that, of all players from the Showtime Lakers, Spencer Haywood is the one who feels that “Winning Time” accurately portrayed his character.
In the show — and in real life — Haywood struggled with drug use, eventually leading to him being kicked off the Lakers before the end of the 1980 NBA Finals. He’s past the days of his drug use, fortunately, and has publicly discussed his struggles during that period of his life.
So, when it came time for those very struggles to find their way to the silver screen — pun intended — in the debut season of “Winning Time,” there was plenty of source material straight from Haywood available, including in Jeff Pearlman’s book that was used as the overall source material for “Winning Time” as a whole.