Lakers try to find spot for Odom
Fair or not, Lamar Odom got much of the blame for the L.A. Lakers losing in the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics. Despite averaging 15.6 points and 8.9 rebounds last season, he didn’t perform well in the Finals and those calls of Odom being “soft” resurfaced, as did the trade rumors.
Leading into training camp, Phil Jackson mentioned possibly having Odom come off the bench in a sixth-man role, with Trevor Ariza starting.
“I don’t hesitate to say that if this team doesn’t work out the way I want it to, Trevor [Ariza] may be a starting player in that first five,” Jackson said. “I may just insert him and convince Lamar to come off the bench if I feel it’s better for the team and we don’t feel as comfortable on the floor as I’d like us to feel.”
Jackson’s logic likely being that Ariza increases the Lakers’ speed, quickness and defensive pressure. And Ariza doesn’t need the ball to play well, something Odom does. Playing alongside Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol (and now Andrew Bynum again), Odom can’t establish any kind of offensive rhythm simply because he doesn’t get enough touches. On the second unit, he would be the main playmaker on the offense would run through him.
Yet Odom won’t hear of not starting.
“He must have woke up and bumped his head. He probably hit his head on something — boom,” Odom said of Jackson. “To start off like that, you’ve got to be out of your . . . mind.”
Odom, from his grade school days in New York City to high school to college and during his nine years in the NBA, always has been a starter.
So, Jackson may be changing his plans as Odom has been playing some point guard during camp. Derek Fisher has shifted to a shooting-guard role on offense and Kobe has moved to small forward.
Odom, at 6-10, could post up smaller point guards, though the team would lose some of his offensive rebounding if he stayed out on the perimeter. And he did spend some time with the Clippers at point guard earlier in his career. He has averaged 4.4 assists a game in his first nine NBA seasons.
So far, the results are mixed.
“He’s looking like I would expect him to look — still searching for where to be, how to get there, not only knowing where he’s supposed to be, but where everybody else is supposed to be,” Fisher said. “It’s going to take some time to learn how to really quarterback the offense, though he’s excited about the opportunity.”
Still, Jackson clearly isn’t thrilled with Odom, only saying this of his performance as a point-forward so far: “Lamar’s not in shape. Lamar’s not ready to play.”
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