When HBO’s Winning Time series about the Los Angeles Lakers came out, just about every person associated with the team disavowed it, criticizing it for turning people into caricatures and exaggerating stories for entertainment value — which is part of the allure of the show, since it’s not meant to be a documentary.
There was also the fact that many of the subjects of that show had their own documentaries in the works, with Magic Johnson having an Apple TV+ series coming out and Jeanie Buss putting together a 10-part series with Hulu. The Hulu doc, titled Legacy: The True Story of the L.A. Lakers, is set to release this summer (a firm date is still TBD) and on Tuesday they dropped the first extended teaser trailer, showing off the variety of subjects interviewed, from those that played and coached for the Lakers like LeBron, Shaq, Kareem, Pat Riley, Jerry West, and Phil Jackson, to the entire Buss family, with Mark Cuban teasing the Buss family drama as “real life Succession.”
Given the production is overseen by Jeanie Buss, it’ll be interesting to see how much they dive into the battle among the Buss children after Dr. Jerry Buss’ death for control of the Lakers. That would probably be one of the most interesting and potentially revealing things this doc could provide as it’s not something that has been publicly discussed much by the Buss family, but also it seems fair to wonder how polished they’ll make it look for the documentary. It’ll be interesting to see what the appetite for the latest marathon sports documentary is from fans, but ultimately that’s up to how good the stories are in it and how much new information they provide.
