Michael Shannon to star as LA Lakers owner Jerry Buss in HBO pilot

Two-time Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon has signed on to play Dr Jerry Buss, the owner of LA Lakers professional basketball team, in a biographical drama pilot for HBO.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the pilot will be directed by Adam McKay of "Vice" and "The Big Short" fame.

The hour-long drama will chronicle the professional and personal lives of the 1980s-era Lakers.

It is based based on Jeff Pearlman's non-fiction book "Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s". Max Borenstein has penned the script.

Shannon's version of Buss will be a self-made millionaire whose success has only amplified his proclivity for risk. He redefines American sports, celebrity and wealth by transforming the Lakers into a dynasty, but his house of cards threatens to collapse on him and the people he loves most.

The show will also feature actor Jason Clarke as Jerry West, a Lakers legend and general manager of the team during the "Showtime" era.

He is described as the "cantankerous tortured genius of basketball ought to be the perfect man to build the Lakers into a dynastyif only he can get past his own worst enemy: Jerry West."