Showtime Lakers author Jeff Pearlman understands why there's a backlash to Winning Time, says he'd love Brad Pitt or J.K. Simmons to play Phil Jackson

Variety

“I don’t get mad when people are talking about that. Obviously, people have a right,” Pearlman tells Variety of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jerry West recently lashing out at the HBO series based on his book. “Some guy is writing a book. You don’t know him. ‘OK, well, how much are you going to pay me?’ I’m not going to pay you. ‘Well, what about editorial control?’ No, you have no editorial control. ‘Well, can I read my quotes before?’ Actually, you can’t. I get why people don’t talk to us. It always rubs my motor a little bit. I’m going to call every other teammate and every ball boy and every Laker girl, and I’m going to record the hell out of this… It makes sense that they have weird feelings about it. I harbor no grudge or ill will or anything." As for who he'd like to play Jackson in a potential Winning Time series focused on the Kobe-Shaq Lakers, Pearlman says Simmons is "not bad," but probably too old. "I would probably try to pull Brad Pitt," he says. "That’d be amazing. They optioned the book and people always get excited over things way prematurely. A lot has to happen. If the show ended right now, I just had the luckiest run in my life. It’s all gravy for me."