Academy Award–winning actor Adrien Brody will play former Los Angeles Lakers head coach Pat Riley in an upcoming HBO miniseries based on sports journalist Jeff Pearlman’s 2014 nonfiction bestseller, Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, according to Variety. The series will be co–executive produced by The Big Short director Adam McKay, who will helm the first episode. No prospective release date for the untitled series was announced.
The book covers the story of the Lakers from 1979 to 1991—a period in the team’s history commonly known as the “Showtime” era, during which the team won the NBA championship five times, led by players Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Riley was head coach for four of those victories. Pearlman provides portraits of these figures and others in his book, and they’re often unflattering ones. For example, he takes Riley and another coach to task “for considering themselves unassailable coaching geniuses,” according to Kirkus’ review, and reveals “the bitterness and jealousy of some of the players.” Still, our reviewer noted that the author “ably demonstrates how deeply flawed human beings can nonetheless create a near-flawless beauty on the court.”
The series will feature newcomers Quincy Isaiah as Johnson and former University of California, Berkeley, basketball player Solomon Hughes as Abdul-Jabbar, as well as Oscar nominee John C. Reilly as Lakers owner Jerry Buss and Pet Sematary’s Jason Clarke as the team’s general manager, Jerry West.
Brody won an Academy Award for playing Polish musician and Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman in the 2002 film The Pianist, which was based on Szpilman’s 1946 memoir of the same name. He’s also set to star in an upcoming Epix show based on Stephen King’s horror story “Jerusalem’s Lot.”
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
