Former Laker Lamar Odom sought peace in Manhattan Beach in 2007
Lamar Odom in 2007 at Bruce’s Park shortly after he moved to Manhattan Beach. Photo
Editor’s note: The following interview with basketball great Lamar Odom originally appeared in Easy Reader in January 2007, shortly after Odom moved to Manhattan Beach.
Lamar Odom took a sip of his peach milkshake, paused for five seconds and slowly started explaining why he moved to Manhattan Beach at the end of last year.
“I felt like I needed a fresh start…after my son died last summer,” he finally said in a barely audible voice. “And Manhattan Beach felt like the right place. It’s beautiful. It’s peaceful. It’s a prime location… And several of my teammates live here.”
As Odom talked softly and gestured gently with his huge hands at Sloopy’s — the casual-cool sandwich shop near the corner of Highland and Rosecrans — he accidentally knocked over his milkshake.
This time there was no pause, no hesitation.
“I’ve got it,” he said, quickly lifting his 6-foot-10 frame from his chair to grab a handful of napkins from the counter before an eager waiter or an adoring Lakers fan — and there were plenty of both nearby — could move to clean up the gooey mess. “No worries.”
Odom came back to the table and pushed his grilled Mahi-Mahi sandwich – with Swiss cheese – off to the side. He began wiping up the lumpy liquid mass spreading across the wooden table top like a high tide at El Porto.
“You spill it, you clean it up,” he said. “That’s what my grandmother taught me.”
It was all over in 30 seconds, a soon-to-be-forgotten moment in another busy day for the Los Angeles Lakers superstar who currently spends most of his time rehabbing a serious knee injury that has sidelined him for the last six weeks.
But it was also the kind of assertive, take-charge moment that Lakers coaches and fans have been pushing, praying and pleading for — on the court — ever since the multi-talented, three-position player came back to LA two and a half years ago in the controversial, still-waiting-for-a-verdict trade that sent Shaquille O’Neal to the Miami Heat.
In exchange for the self-proclaimed Most Dominant Player Ever, the Lakers got back Odom, who had turned in exactly one All-Star caliber season in Miami after four rocky, roller-coaster years with the LA Clippers.
They also got ultra-talented forward Caron Butler — later traded for center Kwame Brown, who has his own potential-versus-performance issues — a disabled Brian Grant, now retired, and Miami’s first round pick in the NBA draft, which they used to draft UCLA point guard Jordan Farmar last June.
Although Brown has shown signs of finally living up to his long-lost potential as the top overall draft pick six years ago and the 20-year old Farmar has mounted a strong challenge to starting point guard Smush Parker, the on-court burden of justifying the much-derided O’Neal trade has fallen on the sloping shoulders, long arms and deferential, pass-first play of the 27-year-old Odom.
Driving to the left. Photo courtesy of LA Lakers
LA Story, Part Two
The reviews of the second chapter of Odom’s LA Story, so far, have been decidedly mixed.
A left-handed slasher — and he almost always drives left — who rebounds like a power forward, passes like a point guard and shoots three-pointers in bunches, Odom has frequently played like an All-Star.
But he has also disappeared in too many games, has taken a back seat to Kobe Bryant in too many crucial situations, and has not made the All-Star team despite being consistently rated as one of the 20 most talented players in the NBA.
A graceful, unselfish dunking machine.
In other words, he has not played like the great player everyone has expected him to be since he first came to the hoop world’s attention a decade ago as the latest in a long line of New York City playground legends, a latter-day version of Connie Hawkins, the graceful, unselfish dunking machine who eventually found pro stardom with the Phoenix Suns.
Now as Odom enters the prime of his career he’s got to do more, critics say, and tap more of his incredible potential for the Lakers to take the next step and re-join the NBA elite — currently composed of the run-and-stun Phoenix Suns, the coulda-shoulda-woulda-won-last-year Dallas Mavericks and the still-good-but-no-longer-great San Antonio Spurs.
Odom’s remarkably consistent career averages of 16 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists, the critics say, must grow to 20 points, 10 boards and 7 or 8 assists a night. Equally important, he must stop deferring to Kobe Bryant and start looking for his own opportunities in the Triangle scheme so that the Lakers have a twin-engine offense.
A more aggressive attitude would not only help Odom blossom, but it would also give Kobe some relief from the swarming double and triple teams that are thrown at him in crucial, gotta-have-a-bucket situations.
That challenge — to increase his aggression, expand his production, assume more of a leadership role and make the All-star team — is fine with Odom.
Shooting three-pointers in bunches.
“I welcome it,” he said. “I just want to help the Lakers win championships. My time will come, but winning comes first. The personal accolades will come from the winning.”
Living the Daydream
From the moment that Odom first put on the purple and gold jersey and did the obligatory poses for photographers in the summer of 2004, Lakers fans and media have daydreamed about Odom as Scottie Pippen 2.0, the do-it-all wingman to Bryant’s latter-day incarnation of Michael Jordan.
For most of his first two seasons as a Laker, however, that LA dream of Kobe and Lamar as another dynamic duo chasing a championship turned into just another Hollywood illusion.
Kobe played like Jordan, all right, leading the league in scoring last year with more than 35 points a game and even erupting for 81 points in a game against Toronto.
But Odom did not consistently play up to the level of Pippen, the 6-foot-8 Chicago Bull forward who made his rep with in-your-grill defense, clever playmaking and clutch shooting at critical moments. The body, the style and the skills were similar but the production and overall impact on the game didn’t measure up.
The 6-foot-10 Odom above the rim. Photo courtesy of the LA Lakers
Kobe and Lamar’s first season together in 2004-5 with Rudy Tomjanovich as coach was particularly painful after Rudy T resigned in mid-season with health problems.
“It was very tough,” Odom said. “New coach, new system, new players getting to know each other…then Rudy left and Kobe got hurt.”
But the shocking 34-48 record produced 7-foot center Andrew Bynum in the form of the 10th pick in the NBA draft. The youngest player ever drafted in the history of the NBA, Bynum just turned 19 last fall. He is big and skilled and motivated and has already shown stretches of dominance that remind some Lakers fans of a certain former Laker who loved to give himself nicknames but hated to work hard and stay in shape.
“Andrew is working every day with Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the greatest post player ever,” Odom said. “Drew is just going to keep improving.”
After a year of Phil Jackson’s Zen massage last season the whole equation — a Big 2 plus a Solid 3 run through a Triangle Offense equals a winning 5 — suddenly began to add up in the first round of the playoffs against Phoenix.
And Odom’s improvement coincided with the team’s improvement.
“I didn’t really start to understand the triangle offense until the end of the season,” Odom said. “It takes anybody a long time to find their spots where they can score. That’s why you’re seeing so much improvement from the young guys this year. It’s complicated because of the endless possibilities. There are no set plays.”
In the playoffs Odom was finally eager to initiate the offense and eager to take the tough shot under pressure. He averaged a Pippen-esque 19 points and 11 rebounds against the Suns and played lock-down defense on perennial All-Star Shawn Marion.
TV analyst Doug Collins could not contain himself at one point during the Lakers’ game 4 win.
“The Suns don’t have an answer for Lamar Odom,” he said. “He’s a unique player.”
And for the first time Kobe had a (nearly) equal partner. After taking a 3-1 series lead, the Lakers lost in seven games and the game 7 loss was a serious slam-dunk. But the Kobe-Lamar paradigm, the twin-engine prototype, had been established once and for all as the Lakers’ winning formula.
Howie from Malibu on Line 3
When Kobe continued to tone it down and spread the wealth while Lamar turned up the volume even louder early this season, the Lakers improved so much that they vaulted from the middle-of-the-pack limbo of last season into the league’s second tier, the championship waiting room just behind current contenders Dallas, Phoenix and San Antonio.
“Lamar made a significant step forward this season,” Lakers assistant coach Kurt Rambis said Tuesday. “That’s why his injury came at such a bad time for him and the team.”
Odom is due to make his return tomorrow night, trainer Gary Vitti said.
As Kobe, 28, continually points out, the Lakers are a young and improving team. But they have the veteran leadership — with Kobe in his 11th season and Odom in his eighth season — necessary to compete for an NBA championship.
Over the last few months the radio sports talk daydream of Howie from Malibu and Ramon from Boyle Heights has become the gospel preached in the house of hoops known as the Staples Center: sooner rather than later Jackson will once again work his Zen magic to bring LA an NBA championship with a team anchored by two future Hall-of-Famers and a carefully cultivated supporting cast, just as he did with Jordan and Pippen in Chicago for six titles and Kobe and Shaq for three titles.
But instead of Baby Bulls like John Paxson and Horace Grant or long-time Lakers like Robert Horry and Brian Shaw doing the blue-collar work, this production will feature a new cast of role players like classic glue-guy Luke Walton, teenage post-monster Andrew Bynum, slick playmaker Jordan Farmar and board-banger supreme Ronny Turiaf.
After all, every great player has had a sensational sidekick and a solid supporting cast to help lead his team through the blast furnace of skills, strategies, superstar calls, injuries and perseverance known as the NBA playoffs. It’s two months of competitive hell, with a championship heaven waiting for only one of the 16 teams who make it to the big dance.
That’s why Jordan had Pippen, Larry Bird had Kevin McHale and Magic Johnson had a late-in-his-career Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and then James Worthy to catch his air-mailed passes. And Shaq, of course, had Kobe riding shotgun — or vice-versa, depending on who’s writing the history.
Despite all the pressure it brings, Odom said he has no problem with the comparisons to great tandems of the past, nor with the expectations attached.
“It makes a certain amount of sense. Kobe is such a dominant scorer, like Jordan was, and Pippen was versatile, like I try to be,” Odom said. “The comparison to Scottie Pippen is a compliment.”
And Odom made it clear that, despite constant media speculation to the contrary, he likes Kobe Bryant, likes playing with Kobe and considers him a close friend.
“I’ve known Kobe since I was 15 years old,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for him, his talent and his work ethic. He’s always been a well put together young man, raised the right way and well educated.”
To Play or Not to Play?
Being asked to complete the mysterious puzzle that is an NBA championship team is nothing compared to the spiritual and emotional challenge Odom faced last June with the death of his seven-month-old son, Jayden, from the mysterious malady known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS.
“For me, family is always number one,” Odom said. “My little boy passing away…it was tough on me and my family.”
By now, however, Odom is used to dealing with pain and loss.
“He’s a sweetheart of a man with a huge heart. But he’s also a hard luck guy,” said long-time Lakers trainer Gary Vitti. “Bad things happen to him and he loses people close to him, but somehow he keeps going.”
Start with being raised in the South Jamaica projects, the same neighborhood that produced rapper 50 Cent. It was Ground Zero of the New York City 1980’s cocaine epidemic.
Odom’s father was a heroin addict who soon drifted away and he lost his mother — a beloved Corrections officer who was the light of his life — to colon cancer at age 12.
After his mother was gone he was raised by his grandmother, who recently died.
“My grandmother took me to Church and sent me to Catholic School,” he said. “But it wasn’t so much about religion. It was about being spiritual, about always doing the right thing, treating people right.”
But losing a grandmother and even a mother — however prematurely — is part of the natural cycle of life for everyone. Losing a child brings a special kind of pain that tested Odom‘s strong spirituality.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare,” Vitti said. “Intellectually Lamar understands that no one is to blame, but emotionally it’s still devastating.”
Even all of Odom’s fame, fortune and success did not exempt him from the emotional consequences last summer and fall.
“It hurt so bad I almost didn’t play this season,” he admitted. “But I had two responsibilities I had to uphold: to my family and to my teammates.”
And ultimately the tragedy contributed to his on-court growth this year
“Mentally, it was like…if I can get through this, I can handle anything that comes my way on the court.” he said. “It’s given me strength.”
Hip-hop Babies
Dealing with his son’s death is just the latest in a string of challenges Odom has faced over the last two decades in his long, strange journey from the South Jamaica projects in Queens, New York to the sandy shores and walled-off McMansions of Manhattan Beach.
By the time he was 15 Odom was so tall and talented he scored 36 points in Madison Square Garden to help Christ the King win a city high school championship. He was on his way to legend status.
“That’s when I first heard of him,” Vitti said. “By the time he was a senior everybody knew who he was.”
Rambis agreed.
“He’s an athletic freak, and I mean that in a good way,” Rambis said. “Guys that tall, that skilled and that unselfish don’t come along very often, so you notice it when they show up on the radar.”
But 10 years ago Odom became the poster boy for recruiting abuses when he attended three high schools during his senior year of 1996-97. Then he was run off from the University of Nevada Las Vegas when Sports Illustrated charged that his SAT scores were inflated. UNLV officials – already dealing with the fallout of the just ended Jerry Tarkanian era — panicked at the thought of more bad publicity and more possible sanctions.
So Odom left without ever attending a class, but plenty of other colleges wanted him. Hoop contacts soon led him to Rhode Island to play for former UCLA coach Jim Harrick.
After sitting out one year and playing one year at Rhode Island he was drafted fourth overall by the LA Clippers. In Los Angeles he quickly became the 19-year-old leader of a group of talented young players — including Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson — who called themselves “The hip-hop Babies.”
They became stars on ESPN’s nightly roundup of look-at-me dunks and check-this-out blocks. But along with the success came the clubs, the women, the weed and the partying.
In hindsight, he now says, that early success almost ruined his career.
“I was only 19…I thought I could party all night and not work out and still score 20 points,” he said. “I was proud of that — not working out and still scoring 20 points. I bragged about it.”
He was later suspended twice by the Clippers for smoking marijuana and missed large chunks of his last two seasons due to a string of frustrating, debilitating injuries. He became a restricted free agent and signed with Miami for the 2003-04 season after the Clippers cited “character issues” while refusing to match Miami’s five-year, $67 million contract offer.
From Boys to Men
At the same time his personal trainer, Robbie Davis, warned him privately that he was wasting his unique talent and would mightily regret it later in life if he didn’t turn things around now.
Stung by the public and private criticism, he went to Florida and bought into the physical conditioning, intense work-ethic and off-court professionalism demanded by Miami coach Pat Riley.
“I used it for motivation, and I never looked back,” he says today. “I wish the Clippers well.”
By the end of that first and only Miami year he was starting to make prophets out of the talent scouts who said he was the closest thing they had ever seen to Magic Johnson: a long, lean player with the talent, skills and instincts to play point guard, power forward or even center in an emergency.
“Pat Riley saved me,” Odom said. “He held me accountable for everything I did, on and off the court. He showed me how to be a man.”
Vitti, the Lakers trainer who has known Odom since he came to LA in 1999, said the lessons Riley taught Odom have taken hold and blossomed.
“The greatest thing about Lamar now is he takes responsibility for everything he does,” Vitti said. “And he’s so street-wise that he learns from his mistakes and doesn’t make them again.”
Two weeks after his breakthrough season ended, Odom was traded to the Lakers.
“It happened real quick,” he said. “It was a shock.”
But he quickly recovered when he realized he would be playing with Kobe in purple and gold.
“If I had to be traded, this was the one team I would want to come to,” he said. “Playing for the Lakers is like a baseball player going to the Yankees.”
And he summed up his life now as a 27-year-old man versus the teenager who first showed up in LA.
“I’m the same person,” he said, “just a better decision maker.”
His Destiny
As he finished his sandwich and shake Wednesday afternoon, Odom started talking about Hall of Fame players who never won a championship.
“Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Dominique Wilkins — they all won lots of individual accolades, but all anyone remembers about them is that they didn’t win a championship,” he said.
Then he declared his firm intention to help bring an NBA championship to LA.
“I feel like I still have a lot to accomplish on the basketball court. A championship is my long term goal,” he said. “If everyone keeps improving the way they have this year, it’s doable. And it would make my career complete.”
Making his life complete is a little harder. But he’s working on that goal too.
“As I get older and the world becomes more complex, I feel like your relationship with God is the most important thing in life, however you may relate to him,” he said. “My relationship is good.”
Having been poor — in material terms — and now rich beyond his wildest dreams, Odom said he is grateful for his wealth but understands the limitations of money.
“Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you’re a good person,” he said. “I like to think that I’m rich in spirit and humility.”
“Manhattan Beach felt like the right place. It’s beautiful. It’s peaceful.” Lamar Odom in 2007
And he mused about his death and his legacy.
“I hope people go to my funeral because they want to, not because they feel like they have to go,” he said. “At the end of the day, I want to be remembered for who I was, not for what I had. When you’re laying in your hearse, they don’t have a U-haul following it.” ER
Contact: paulteetor@verizon.net