SEPTEMBER 2022:
BASKETBALL MAFIA DIARIES…
In the third episode of HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, we had a lot of comings and goings. We saw Jerry West, played by Jason Clarke, resign as coach for the Lakers, and Dr. Buss doesn’t take it well and screamed at West for abandoning the team just weeks before the team is due to begin training for the new season. While Magic Johnson was getting ready to leave Lansing, Michigan, and was doing his final packing for Los Angeles. And while they are both making exits, Pat Riley, played by Adrien Brody, is trying to literally get through an entrance. To The Forum, that is, he is trying to get in the building with the hopes of speaking to the Lakers about a job opportunity. And Dr. Buss is trying to get the University of Nevada, Las Vegas coach, Jerry Tarkanian, played by Rory Cochrane, to come through the entrance and sign on as the new coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. Tarkanian and his friend and business manager, Victor Weiss are having lunch when Dr. Buss arrives unannounced and since he drove all the way out to Las Vegas to try and convince the coach to come aboard, they allow him to join them for dinner. It’s the shocking end of that meeting and episode that this recommendation begins.
HITTING COACH…
The biggest question to arise from the episode is surrounding Rose Weiss calling Tarkanian to inform him that Weiss, who had been missing for some time, turned up dead stuffed into the trunk of his car, presumably murdered in a mob hit. And she also informs him that Dr. Buss’ business card was found stuck to his face. Winning Time is known to take liberties with some of the facts for dramatic purposes, so how much of that scene was actually true? Most of it was true, with a few details that have been changed to fit into the story being told. My recommendation looks at that scene and how a mob hit may have kept Jerry Tarkanian from becoming the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.
THE SCENE TABLE IS SET…
In the meeting scene, Tarkanian is taking the long road to call Dr. Buss a fraud, by way of discussing the Lakers owner’s dedication to his combover every day, while Buss is offering him $750,000 a year to coach the Lakers and he throws in a couple of Rolls-Royces to sweeten the deal. And as it seems to have brought them aboard to the Lakers, across the restaurant at another table, a group of mafia guys is causing a distraction and ends up derailing the meeting and deal and confusing Dr. Buss at the same time. The dinner ends and Dr. Buss heads back to Los Angeles believing he has secured Tarkanian for the Lakers, while Tarkanian and Weiss go their separate ways home for the night. Tarkanian wonders the next morning where Weiss is but assumes he went back and slept at the office when he doesn’t hear from him. He was last seen leaving the dinner with Dr. Buss and Tarkanian. Then he gets a call from Rose.
RESTAURANT MAFIA..
The series portrays the mafia distraction in the restaurant as a warning for Weiss. The series interprets that the mafia whacked Weiss because they didn’t want Tarkanian making any deals to leave Los Vegas, but never explains why that is outside of explaining that Weiss has gambling debts with the mafia. All that is understood is they don’t want Jerry Tarkanian to leave his coaching position at UNLV.
FACT FROM FICTION…
Now as far as what really took place and what was dramatized for the series, the case, to this day, remains unsolved, but it is widely believed that Weiss’ death was the result of a mob hit resulting from his unpaid gambling debts and was not to prevent Tarkanian from coaching the Lakers. Jim Hecht, co-creator of Winning Time in research for the series development, insists that Tarkanian was already hired before the murder, telling The Hollywood Reporter:
– Jim Hecht to The Hollywood Reporter“This murder has never been solved by the police. I didn’t know, as a huge Lakers fan, that Jerry Tarkanian had been hired! They did the contracts. It was a done deal.”
JUST THE FACTS, JACK…
Tarkanian had in fact been hired by the Lakers before the murder of Weiss occurred. What ultimately led to Tarkanian not taking the coaching position with the Lakers was partly due to the murder and his grief and shock over the death of his friend, but it was also the result of his desire to stay in Las Vegas that resulted in him turning down the job offer. In Jeff Pearlman’s book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, for which the series Winning Time is based, he also confirms that Tarkanian had already been hired prior to the death of Weiss writing in his book,
– Jeff Pearlman in Showtime“A mere three days earlier, on the evening of June 14, Weiss had seemed to be the happiest man on the planet, a fifty-one-year-old sports promoter who served as Jerry Tarkanian’s representative, he had bounded out the front entrance of the Beverly-Comstock Hotel, euphoric in the knowledge that his client was about to be named the new coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Those were the words Cooke and Buss had just used during their meeting – ‘We’re excited to have Jerry as the new coach of the Lakers.’”
CHECK THE TRUNK NOT THE BALL…
On June 17, 1979, Victor Weiss was found dead in the trunk of his car and the June 14 meeting with Buss and Tarkanian was the last time that Weiss was seen alive. Weiss had been shot execution-style in the head twice, with his hands and feet tied behind his back, and his briefcase and wallet had been taken, but he was left with his diamond ring and watch, and $38, 000 in his pocket, leading police to rule out that the motive for his death was a robbery gone wrong. Winning Time did take liberties with the Jerry Buss business card, as no business card was found on the body of Victor Weiss.
MONEY MOTIVES…
At the time of his death, Weiss owed $60,000 in gambling debts and it was also noted in Pearlman’s book that shortly before his death, Weiss had been traveling back and forth between Los Angeles and Las Vegas to deliver what was presumed to be laundered cash, from which it was believed Weiss was skimming from on the delivery. It was also suspected by the police, that he had been warned to stop taking the money and was killed as a result of not doing so while also owing the gambling debt.
SEVEN DEGREES OF MARTIN SCORSESE…
Around the time of his death, Weiss was seen around Las Vegas with Anthony Spilotro, the Chicago mafia’s west coast representative in Las Vegas whom Weiss is suspected to have been couriering the money for, Spilotro’s impetuousness for violence was most notably portrayed by Joe Pesci, as Nicky Santoro, who was based on Spilotro, in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film, Casino. Weiss was apparently, per FBI records, working off his gambling debt by couriering the money for Spilotro between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Weiss is seen in FBI surveillance, in the days leading up to his murder, meeting with both of Spilotro’s primary California lieutenants, Joey Hansen in L.A. and Chris Pettit in San Diego.
WEISS’ LIFE DEBT…
Additional files from the California State Police noted Weiss as an associate of the L.A. mafia due to his dining on a regular basis with known Dragna crime family soldiers Ross Lantieri and Joe Sica, as well as his business dealings with them, including running bookmaking and gambling “layoff” rackets in partnership with Lantieri and being involved with Sica in prizefighting. According to reports, the briefcase stolen from his car when the body was found contained the signed contracts for Tarkanian to coach the Lakers.
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS…
Investigators were able to track Weiss’ route from the Beverly Comstock to Encino, where he was seen by witnesses pulling over his car to the side of the road and engaging in a shouting match with three men in a Cadillac who had pulled up behind him when he pulled over to the side of the road. Witnesses say the men eventually got into Weiss’ Rolls Royce with him at the wheel and were seen pulling out into traffic and heading north on the Hollywood Expressway. The three men have never been identified and Weiss was never seen alive again. It is suspected by police that it was probably within minutes of heading out into traffic that Weiss was murdered, and his body was later stuffed into the trunk tied up.
HARDSHIP PLAGUED…
The Weiss family was apparently plagued with suffering and hardship even after the untimely death, his son died during a deployment to Iraq in 2004, and his widow, Rose, was murdered by their own daughter in 2008. It is likely the case will remain unsolved due to any possible lead or suspects in the 1979 murder being dead themselves as a result of their professions.
SOMETIMES EVEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON…
And as history goes, and Winning Time shows, as a result of the tragic events, Jack McKinney is hired by the Lakers management instead. McKinney is then badly injured in a bicycle accident and forced to step down early in the 1979-1980 season, and his assistant coach Paul Westhead took over for him. Westhead taking over would begin the rise of the Lakers dynasty by spurring the Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Showtime era with their first of five crowned championships in the next eight years. Pat Riley would join him as an assistant coach and add to that win, while also eventually succeeding Westhead from the bench in the 1981-1982 season to become the head coach and helped bring the Los Angeles Lakers to its last four championships of the Showtime era, then repeating the wins in 1987 and 1988 before going on to become a Hall of Fame coach for the Lakers.
MY WINNING RECOMMENDATION…
While Winning Time took liberties with how the meeting between Tarkanian and Weiss occurred, leaving Jack Kent Cooke, the former owner who sold the Lakers to Dr. Jerry Buss out and instead having Dr. Buss show up in Las Vegas, the facts of Victor Weiss’ murder remain and Tarkanian never takes the coaching job, leaving viewers of the series to wonder, would the Lakers dynasty still have reigned in the Showtime era under Tarkanian had Weiss lived and he took the position in Los Angeles? We will never know, but this episode is recommended to watch along with the rest of the series, especially if you’re a Los Angeles Lakers fan!
You can watch the Official Trailer for Episode 3 of Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty here:
All ten episodes of Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty are now available to stream on HBOMAX!