Before WinningTime tips off tonight, check out all the actors playing the real-life NBA legends!
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"It took everything I had in me, as a person and as an actor, to play this guy," Reilly told ET. "He was bigger than life and those are some big shoes to fill... He was such a complicated person, such an intelligent person, he had a doctorate in physical chemistry to teach chemistry at USC, like, multifaceted doesn't even cover it."
"It's one of the greatest challenges that I've been able to do as an actor, and that I'll probably be able to do, playing an icon that a lot of people know, that the public knows," the actor told ET."He's beloved." A legendary player in his own right -- who is, quite literally, the symbol of the NBA -- West coached the Lakers for three years before transitioning to his role as the team's general manager in 1982, and is credited with the construction of the Showtime Era team.
"Jerry's remarkably open and honest with his own struggles and the cost of those struggles, and his relationship to the people that he loves in the game -- we've seen that recently with Kobe, and what Kobe's passing did to him," he noted. "I respect that in him, and I hope that he respects what I've tried to portray in the heart of who he is.
cast when it came to portraying his own father, Norm Nixon, a point guard who spent six season with the Lakers, winning two NBA championships with the team during the start of their Showtime Era before being traded away. While the actor said he knows that"you can't please everyone" when it comes to adapting real-life stories, he added that"I hope they realize we made the show to highlight their legacy and that comes across," he shared."I hope they enjoy it, from the bottom of my heart.
"What I do think is really cool is this story of the three-headed monster of the coaches in this first Lakers season," he added of the relationship between Westhead, Pat Riley and Jerry West."As they were desperately trying to figure out how to put not just the Lakers on the court together, but also the coaching staff and the organization...
Following four championship with the Showtime Lakers, Riley would go on to coach the early '90s New York Knicks -- who were consistent contenders against the dominant Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls -- before moving on to the Miami Heat, where he won another championship as a head coach before building the"Big Three" team of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, and still serves as team president.
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