INDIANAPOLIS — Last summer, I talked with director Salli Richardson-Whitfield ahead of the second season of "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty."
Often billed as "Los Angeles' other basketball team," the Clippers made worldwide headlines in 2014 — and it wasn't for their basketball skills.
"Clipped" is a six-episode limited series about team owner Donald Sterling's racist remarks captured on tape by his ambitious personal assistant V. Stiviano.
"For me, it was about looking at the costs of living and working and trying to thrive under the ownership of a racist and confident buffoon," said Gina Welch, showrunner, executive producer and writer.
Starring as the erratic team owner is Ed O'Neill ("Modern Family," "Married... with Children"), who thanked his basketball-playing co-stars portraying Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and JJ Redick.
"In between takes, it wasn't like a method thing. We were having a lot of fun, and they had a sense of humor about it," O'Neill said. "They really helped me not feel insecure about saying some of the things and acting the way I was."
And who knows where Sterling would be had it not been for Stiviano recording and releasing his conversations.
"She's someone that took up as much space as she needed in a room," Cleopatra Coleman ("The Last Man on Earth," "In the Shadow of the Moon") said on playing Stiviano. "There was a line that Gina (Welch) wrote in the script when she first enters the show, that V. is someone with this larger-than-life charisma that everyone ignores, and that was such an interesting way to describe the character, and it gave me so much to play with."
Also co-starring in "Clipped" are five-time Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Laurence Fishburne ("The Matrix," "What's Love Got to Do with It") as coach Doc Rivers and Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver ("Silver Linings Playbook," "Animal Kingdom") as the owner's wife, Shelly Sterling.
"The better they are, the easier it is," said Kevin Bray, executive producer and director. "When you have actors that are that good, they're really fun to play with when you have suggestions or directorial ideas you want to go."
To tell the story as authentically as possible, the creators brought in former Clippers player Matt Barnes as a consultant.
"You can do all the research in the world, but you want to know the stuff like the locker room dynamics and the relationships between players and coaches, so having that available was quite awesome," said Rembert Browne, producer and writer.
New episodes of "Clipped" are released Tuesdays on Hulu through July 2.