New HBO Series ‘Winning Time’ Features Former Cal Basketball Star Solomon Hughes

One day in the summer of 2019, Solomon Hughes, a former Cal basketball star then working in academia, got a message from a former college teammate-turned actor: an untitled TV series was searching for someone to play the great basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Based on the 2014 book “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers” by Jeff Pearlman, the series now has a name, “Winning Time,” and premieres Mar. 6 on HBO. And Hughes, who landed the role, now has his first turn as an actor. We’ll talk to Hughes about the series, becoming an actor and the legacy of the Showtime Lakers dynasty that ruled the court in the 1980s.