Bo Burnham To Play Larry Bird In HBO's New TV Show About The Lakers

Actor, comedian, writer, director, and musician Bo Burnham has been cast as Larry Bird in HBO's upcoming series about the "showtime-era" Los Angeles Lakers. Bird is a Boston Celtics icon who often gave the Lakers trouble, so he could be a central character to the story.

Burnham is known for his comedy specials, and more recently he made his directorial debut with the movie Eighth Grade, which generated rave reviews. Burnham's latest project was the movie Promising Young Woman with Carey Mulligan; he starred as Mulligan's love interest.

It's also been announced that How I Met Your Mother's Jason Segel will play the Lakers assistant coach Paul Westhead.

The rest of the cast for the untitled show includes:

• John C. Reilly as Lakers owner Jerry Buss
• Jason Clarke as Lakers executive Jerry West
• Adrien Brody as coach Pat Riley
• Sally Field as Jerry Buss' mother, Jessie Buss
• Stephen Adly Guirgis as Buss' business partner Frank Mariani
• Kirk Bovill as Clippers owner Donald Sterling
• Spencer Garnett as Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn
• Quincy Isaiah as Magic Johnson
• Solomon Hughes as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
• DeVaughn Nixon as Norm Nixon
• Delante Desouza as Michael Cooper
• Rob Morgan as Earvin Johnson Sr.
• Tamera Tomakili as Earletha "Cookie" Kelly
• Joey Brooks as Lon Rosen
• Molly Gordon as Linda Zafrani

The HBO series is based on the Jeff Pearlman book Showtime, which dug into the lives of the iconic Lakers players from the Showtime era. The Big Short's Adam McKay directed the pilot.

This is just the latest sports-related project from HBO, which recently released a two-part Tiger Woods documentary that dug into the golfer's troubled and complicated past.