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'Winning Time' Episode 5: Did Lakers star Spencer Haywood really circumcise himself?

'I grabbed it, I held it down like a copperhead snake, I did the deed', Haywood explains his circumcision to his teammates

'Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty' Episode 5 introduces Spencer Haywood, the man credited for introducing the world to superstars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James to the world by making the jump to the NBA from high school. But there's more, Wood Harris' Haywood creates ripples within the team when point guard Norm Nixon (DeVaughn Nixon) tells the squad that Haywood circumcised himself. And he apparently did with a rock and a razor.

Haywood started off with the Denver Rockets before heading off to join the Seattle Supersonics. He joined the New York Knicks in 1975 and stayed with the franchise for a couple of seasons until going to the New Orleans Jazz (now Utah) in 1979. He finally made the Lakers unit ahead of the 1979-80 season. Apart from his on-court exploits, Haywood was best known for his lawsuit against the NBA that enabled immensely talented players to enlist for the draft without playing for four years in college.

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Over the course of the episode, some of the players attempted to get a sneak peek to confirm Nixon's story, only for Haywood to flash it and narrate the tale. “I grabbed it, I held it down like a copperhead snake, I did the deed," he said. It may be partly amusing as a sequence, but in his autobiography, "Spencer Haywood: The Rise, the Fall, the Recovery," he does say that he circumcised himself as a child. The story goes along the lines of Haywood's brother telling him that circumcision was a way of avoiding insanity. 

Twitter was lavish in praise of Haywood when the player was introduced in the series. His time with the Lakers ended abruptly and was fired by coach Paul Westhead midway through the 1980 NBA Finals after he fell asleep on the bench. The player later revealed that he hired a mobster to harm the coach. “It was not a [murder] plot per se that you went and sat outside his house waiting for him to come out. They’re more like, you know, ‘Spike his drink’ or ‘Spike his car’ or something,” Haywood told Deadspin in a 2014 interview.

'Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty airs Sundays at 9 pm on HBO.