| | LOS ANGELES --
Lamar Odom walks out of the Staples Center, hops into his small Mercedes, and makes his way back home to Marina Del Rey, to his girl and his 1-year-old daughter. The Clippers lost again only an hour earlier and for that he frowns.
"Hate losing," he says.
|  | | Odom is fitting in very well in the NBA, leading the league in minutes. |
But as he gets closer to home, the frown begins to fade when he remembers who's waiting at home and why. And by the time he swings in the driveway, he realizes that tomorrow is another day with another chance to get on a basketball court and practice with his teammates. And the next tomorrow is another chance to play against the best of the best, and another chance to win. He smiles, finally, and sighs.
"I'm happy," he says. "I'm at peace."
Perhaps this is what Lamar Odom needed all along -- no restriction on practice hours, no waiting a week between games, no pretense to uphold of being a student athlete. The NBA has been nothing but a godsend to the young man who has spent much of the last five years trying to figure out his role, not on a basketball court, but in life.
The past reads like this:
Attended three high schools during his senior year. Signed with UNLV but backed out when his SAT scores were challenged. Signed with the University of Rhode Island, but went AWOL before getting himself reinstated academically. Turned pro and then tried to change his mind, failed to show up for pre-draft press conference and physical. Dropped from the likely first pick in the draft to the fourth -- to the Clippers, a team that itself knows too well about turmoil.
The present reads like this:
Leads the Clippers in scoring and rebounding, is second in steals and fourth in assists and blocks. He leads all first-year players in scoring and rebounding and the league in minutes, and is the early favorite for Rookie of the Year. He's had no incidents of off-court trouble, and shown no sign of the man who seemed so misguided.
"What happened in the past is the past," Odom says. "My whole theory to the thing is that maybe things were given to me, maybe things were coming a little bit too easy for me. Now I'm just doing what the team is asking. I'm just trying to win. I've always known I could play and everybody who has seen me knew I could play."
And now he has the chance -- just about every night without the distraction or pressure of school -- to play on a team that sorely needs him to step up and be the star he wants to be, and for a coach in Chris Ford who knows about harnessing young energy and molding it into on-court power.
"He's no longer a teenager," Ford says of Odom, who turned 20 earlier this month. "He's realizing what it takes to be a player in this league and it's a learning experience for him each and every night."
One giant test of being able to handle the ups and downs of NBA life.
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I knew I had this in me, it just took some time to find it.” |
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— Lamar Odom |
"He's going to have moments where he doesn't play well, but he has to play through it," Ford says. "What is happening is that we are so quickly throwing out these praises and annointing him as the next coming of whoever. Let's give the kid a chance to grow as a basketball player."
And as a man. Odom's life -- even before the high school and college messes -- has been rough. His mother died from cancer when he was 12 and he was raised after that by his grandmother and his aunt. His father was never around much. Being 12 and having to watch your mother die took its toll. There wasn't the guidance, there wasn't the structure and there was the pain. And yet, in some ways, enduring the tragedy helped him get through the criticism and the naysayers who would come down the road.
"It can't get any worse than my mother passing away," he says. "Things that were written about me or said -- I know there's always worse."
Odom has built a protective system around himself, relying on his grandmother and aunt and now his girlfriend and a few close friends to keep him from straying into trouble in a city filled with plenty of it.
"I know I'm done with trouble," he says. "I can't see ever doing something wrong that makes the headlines or is a big major thing in any way. I've made mistakes and I know I'll make more as I go on, but not the kind everyone expected of me."
His on-court performances and his off-court success as well have surprised many in the league. Hearing that, Odom smiles.
"It feels good to prove them all wrong," he said, "but it's a quiet good. It's not like, nah, nah, I'm right and you're wrong. I knew I had this in me, it just took some time to find it."
Odom dreamed about playing in the NBA as a 10-year-old and knew he'd find a way to make his dream a reality. Now that it is, he's happy and content. A man with everything he's ever wanted right around him.
"I'm so happy just to play basketball every day," he says. "To be playing against the best every night, in the best league in the entire world. I do feel as if I was made for this league. I'm just happy." | |
ALSO SEE
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Smith: A real come-from-behind victory
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Lamar Odom runs the floor for the slam.
avi: 405 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Lamar Odom beats down a nasty dunk.
avi: 788 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
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