Westhead, who served as the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and led the team to the 1980 NBA Finals, had kidney stones as per the 8th episode of Winning Time, and it has created confusion among netizens if he had stones.

Thus Screenrant has stated that he did suffer from a kidney stone in February 1980, which made him unable to coach the Lakers for a brief period. Although the health issue was unspecified in its adaptation of the non-fictional book Showtime, the coach suffered a health scare that made him get admitted to the hospital to get treated for a kidney infection.