Lakers News: Champion LA Big Man Discusses His Impending Feature Biopic
Hall of Fame power forward Spencer Haywood may have won a title as a role player with your Los Angeles Lakers (although he was suspended from the team during the NBA Finals proper) in 1980, but he enjoyed his most success with the Seattle SuperSonics, with whom he made four of his five All-Star teams (he was also named to an ABA All-Star team as a rookie with the Denver Nuggets).
The 6'8" big man may best be remembered today not so much for his on-court exploits as his achievements off it, as he took the NBA all the way to the Supreme Court in an antitrust lawsuit that eventually paved the way for players to join the league straight out of high school.
Haywood sat for an extensive YouTube Scoop B Selects interview with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson about a variety of topics, and shed plenty of light on his impending feature biopic.
"Winning Time," HBO's hit fictionalized narrative series about the adventures of the Showtime era Lakers, already depicted one star actor as Haywood: Wood Harris, who was in his early 50s at the time. Harris does not appear to be under consideration for the role in a full-fledged Haywood biopic.
"It’s a full fledged movie and they are putting up the big bucks. One of my producers/ executive producers is Vassal Benford," Haywood said. "He’s a regular big mogul of Hollywood and the other one is Mark Canton. Mark Canton has all of the series Power, Power II, BMF… all of that stuff he owns all of that and he also owns 300 and he’s an executive in the movie industry and then we have our last guy who is Terrell Harris. Terrell Harris is Tobias Harris’s father the agent, you know? He’s a big deal [laughs] and that’s my crew on this deal. So we ran into the Writer’s Strike so we have to slow down but this is not a documentary. This is a made for motion picture movie that’s in theaters, so I’m following by big boy George [Foreman] from the Olympics [laughs]."
Haywood was surprisingly frank when it came to casting, and indicated the two Hall of Famers he would prefer to play him.
"Well there was the original guy, but it didn’t work out with Will [Smith] because things just blew up on his side of things," Haywood revealed. "Now we’re looking at Aldonis Hodge from 'Black Adam' and the guy from the show 'Insecure,' Jay Ellis and my guy that I’m bringing up because I’m one of the producers, I like Dwayne Wade. I like Dwayne Wade and Kevin Garnett. Those are my guys that I like. I’m personal so, I got a personal stake in this thing [laughs]."
It would be weird to see Wade, a 6'4" guard during his playing days with the Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls and (very briefly) Cleveland Cavaliers, play a 6'8" power forward, but those four inches make a much bigger difference in an actual NBA game than they would in a fictive one. Wade played himself in the Queen Latifah-Common romantic comedy "Just Wright"" and the all-star rom-com "What To Expect When You're Expecting." He also contributed his voice to some animated work, namely "Family Guy" spinoff series "The Cleveland Show" and the feature "Fearless."
Garnett, a 6'11" power forward/center, makes more sense, and has years of acting experience. He played another former Lakers champion center, Wilt Chamberlain, in the 1996 TV movie "Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault" (a young Don Cheadle played Manigualt), and of course his (slightly) younger self in the nail-biting Adam Sandler comedy-thriller "Uncut Gems."
Are you following us on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube yet? Join the conversation as we discuss the latest Lakers news and rumors with fans like you!
