‘Running Point’ showrunner David Stassen recently returned to the writers’ room following the show’s success and a Netflix renewal for season 2.
After working on the untitled Bill Lawrence and Steve Carell series for HBO, Stassen was already back working in the ‘Running Point’ writers’ room and breaking story for season 2 in mid-April. The show was quickly renewed by the streamer following its late February 2025 release.
Stassen grew up as a Chicago Bulls fan and working on the show didn’t change his basketball knowledge, but it informed his perspective on how much sports to show in the series. At the same time, the Los Angeles Waves are not the Los Angeles Lakers, but the series includes Lakers controlling owner and team president Jeannie Buss and Executive Director of Special Projects Linda Rambis among its executive producers.
“I don’t know if my basketball knowledge changed, but my idea of how to make basketball for a TV show, certainly that knowledge was increased a hundredfold in this process by figuring out, okay, first of all, what’s the right amount of basketball for our audience?” Stassen says. “What is just enough to keep it exciting and realistic, but not too much that a lot of our audience is not going to care that much about watching a sport.”
Isla Gordon (Kate Hudson) is appointed Los Angeles Waves team president after older brother Cam (Justin Theroux) is forced to step down with a drug problem. Often overlooked, Isla now finds herself running the storied basketball franchise and having all of her decisions constantly questioned by her family–including older brother/general manager Ness (Scott MacArthur) and younger half-brother/chief financial officer Sandy (Drew Tarver)–and the media. The workplace-family-sports comedy is an underdog comedy with a lot of heart.
All episodes of ‘Running Point’ are currently streaming on Netflix.
It’s so nice to talk with you again. How are you doing?
David Stassen: Good. Good. We’re hard at work on season two already, so it’s really fun to be back and just talking about these characters with the writers again. Yeah, it’s been awesome. It’s been a really fun—the whole experience has been great, but it’s been really fun since the show came out, especially.
In a world where second seasons are not a guarantee, how exciting is it to be returning to this world for another season of ‘Running Point?‘
Stassen: Yeah, it’s been really exciting. I’m really grateful that the show has been received so well and that we are getting to do another season. We want to do many, many seasons of it, if I’m being honest. It did feel like we just scratched the surface of the world and the family and the basketball team and the stories that we could tell because there are so many fun and, I think, deep characters on the show that I feel like all deserve a lot of story time.
How much did your basketball knowledge change as a result of working on the series?
Stassen: Well, I love talking about basketball, as I’m sure you know, and I grew up in Chicago in the 90s, so I got to watch the best basketball of all time with the Bulls and with Michael Jordan. I don’t know if my basketball knowledge changed, but my idea of how to make basketball for a TV show, certainly that knowledge was increased a hundredfold in this process by figuring out, okay, first of all, what’s the right amount of basketball for our audience? What is just enough to keep it exciting and realistic, but not too much that a lot of our audience is not going to care that much about watching a sport. They’re here for Kate Hudson and the family dynamics and the comedy. And then figuring out at the same time, all right, what play can we have our actors pull off? What play can our basketball coordinator pull off? How are we going to shoot it? And kind of emotionally, what story can it tell?
Yeah. Is it easier to teach an actor how to play basketball or is it easier teaching a basketball player how to act?
Stassen: I would say they’re both natural skills and I think you can become better at either. But we were lucky that some of our actors could hoop, like our actor Uche, who plays Dyson. He’s a really good basketball player. I think he played Giannis in a movie for Disney. That’s a funny question. Our natural basketball players did not get a lot of acting in the show. But it’s great that we have our backup guys on the team are really true—they played some pretty high level basketball so it just, I think, makes the bench and the reactions and the practices look pretty real.
How influential was Jeannie Buss in shaping the story?
Stassen: Really influential. It was Jeannie’s idea to do this. She and Linda Rambis, who’s her right hand woman at the at the L.A. Lakers, they’re huge comedy fans. They had for years thought, We’re two women running an NBA team. We have very funny stories to tell. They have a unique work life story, just being women in charge of this very testosterone-driven organization in this male-dominated world. Jeannie and Linda gave us so much access. They were so friendly and open and opened their doors to us and took us to the practice facility and to Lakers games and told us stories, some of which are probably too inappropriate for the show to ever do. Jeannie was so inspiring for the show. So was Linda, who is basically our Brenda Song character. And yeah, just them always being up against all these people who don’t think they’re going to be good at their job and they end up kind of winning out is the story of Jeannie and Linda with how successful the Lakers have been. Yeah, they’ve been awesome to work with and they truly are the inspiration for the show.
One of the things that really shocked me watching the series was how this random vendor, who just happens to be working at the arena, turns out to be a half-sibling.
Stassen: Well, yeah, Fabrizio, who plays Jackie, is just an awesome kid and a great actor. You hear these stories—it happened to Jeannie Buss in a certain way, finding out she had a sister she didn’t know of when she was an adult. I think we all hear those stories about secret families and your dad, when you get older, you find out something about his past. That felt kind of relatable, but also a really great way to mix up the family dynamic and show a perspective on this wealth and this access that these other Gordon family members have taken for granted over the years. Mindy’s talked about this, but we wanted there to be a real appreciation and a nod to the die-hard fans of the Lakers or any team that you don’t see courtside, right? The regular fans who make a living and save up their money to get to go to one game a year. Jackie is such a big Waves fan, doesn’t even know he’s related, but loves the team. Jackie means a lot to us.
How come the exterior of the arena is not located in LA?
Stassen: Oh, wait, how can you tell?
Because I looked it up.
Stassen: (Laughs) Well, there’s all sorts of legal loopholes you have to jump through. We were able to get an arena and I think the arena is in Glasgow, Scotland. We were able to use that as our basis and then we dropped it into an LA shot. So in the show, it is LA, but yeah, the arena, the design of it actually is from a different place, and then we put the Microsoft advertisement on top of it. I think we were not allowed to use the Crypto.com Arena because I think that can only be used in shots about an NBA game or NBA show.
Yeah, that kind of segues into my next question. Is it easier dealing with a fictional team and league than it would be incorporating the real Lakers and NBA?
Stassen: Yeah. I don’t want to disparage the NBA. I just can say that it is easy to make everything up for the purposes of our world and our history of the show. So yeah, it was a choice that we made. I think creatively, it was just a way to be in charge of everyone’s perception of the team and not bring preconceived notions to who Isla Gordon is, who the Waves would be, what their history would be, was Kobe on this team, was Shaq on this team. Things we didn’t want to address because it would have, I think, crossed streams, to use a Ghostbusters reference, a movie we all love. I think it was a cleaner way for us to get to tell the stories we wanted to tell.
A lot of TV shows or movies would have the main team win the big playoff game and the Waves end up losing. Can you talk about the decision making process that went into that?
Stassen: Well, I think we all were on the same page. I definitely did not want them to win the first season. In sports, it’s not really too often that the young team that hasn’t really gotten any battle scars yet wins right away. You got to learn to win by losing. I think it felt realistic from a basketball perspective. But more importantly, Isla had such an incredible run season one. She learned a lot. She proved herself. But we wanted there to be room for her to grow still. We wanted her to be motivated and just want a little more going forward. She got a taste of winning and it felt great. I think that taste of winning is addictive and that’s where we wanted her character to be starting season two, needing a little bit more.
Was Ike Barinholtz ever going to be a part of the cast at any point or is Alan the closest we’ll get to seeing any of the Barinholtz family?
Stassen: Yeah, we would have loved to have Ike in the show. There was a scheduling problem because of his commitment to ‘The Studio.’ Mindy and I love writing for Ike. He’s so funny. We were always trying to figure something out that is big enough for him and funny enough, but also gives him room to do the other things that he wants to do, like ‘The Studio.’ So yeah, we would love to see Ike in the show. Right now, there is just Bernie Berger, the fantastic Gordon family attorney, played by Alan Barinholtz. But there’s three Barinholtz’s in LA all looking for acting roles so we can get more of them on the show for sure.
It’s my understanding that you’re also working on the upcoming Bill Lawrence/Steve Carell series for HBO. How are you balancing your time working on both Running Point and that series?
Stassen: Yeah, well, that was awesome. I got to do the writers room from the last fall until just a couple of weeks ago and now I’m full time on ‘Running Point.’ But yeah, I did basically the full writers room of the Steve Carell, Bill Lawrence show. I’ve known Bill for a long time. We actually play basketball together. But it was really fun to work with him and Matt Tarsus, the showrunner. I just did a rewatch of ‘The Office’ with my daughter and it was just so much fun to be in a writers’ room pitching jokes for Steve Carell. He’s one of the funniest people of all time. I wrote the third episode and they’re going to start shooting in a couple weeks. I can’t wait to see it. It’s gonna to be hilarious. I wish I could do more on it. The only reason I left that show is because ‘Running Point’ came back and was successful. I really feel really lucky that I even got to do it at all because I was always coming back to ‘Running Point.’