On Monday the Dallas Mavericks and two-time NBA Champion and 2011 Sixth Man of the Year Lamar Odom parted ways with Odom becoming officially deactivated for the remainder of the season and playoffs. Odom will still be under contract with the Mavs until the off-season but will not be eligible to compete in any games for Dallas or any other franchise as the deadline to sign players that can be active in the playoffs passed on March 23. Considering Odom's immense talent, this is not a common move for a team like the Mavericks who are defending the banner they hung in the rafters of the American Airlines Center in Dallas signifying their NBA Finals victory over the Miami Heat last June. But to anyone following the Mavericks and the NBA, this really doesn't come as too big of a surprise. This had been building all season and there are many factors at play here, so where do we point the finger?
Lamar Odom: Not too many people knew this before this whole ordeal began, but Lamar Odom is a pretty sensitive guy. So one thing that cannot be ignored here is the tragedy that took place in Odom's life before the season started and in the years before. Odom lost an infant son back in 2006, and this past July Odom had to deal with two more deaths. His 24-year-old cousin died, and the day after Odom attended that funeral a vehicle he was in collided with a motorcycle, the bike then came in contact with a 15-year-old boy who did not survive the incident. Nobody can blame Odom for being emotional after that summer, and when it was announced that the team he loved to play for, the Los Angeles Lakers, had a trade lined up that would send Odom to the New Orleans Hornets as part of the package that would bring Chris Paul to L.A., Odom was very upset. He could be heard crying on Stephen A. Smith's radio show following this news.
As we know now, that trade did not happen, but Odom took the news as an insult and held a grudge against the Lakers. That's how he ended up on the Mavericks. After all of this, it's understandable how one could end up performing beneath his normal production. But that being said, you still have to do your job. Despite receiving sparing minutes behind superstar Dirk Nowitski, there is no excuse for not giving the game your full efforts, and if you can't do that, you can't pretend that you are, and lead a team on. This is what led to the confrontation between Odom and Mavericks owner Mark Cuban the day before the two parties separated.
Mark Cuban / Rick Carlisle: You can't ignore the authority figures above Odom in this ordeal. Apparently what sparked the separation was the halftime confrontation between Cuban and Odom Sunday night where Cuban asked him, "Are you in or are you out?" Clearly, this was a show of distaste from Cuban in Odom's lack of effort and productive play. But couldn't he have had that discussion in private and not thrown Odom under the bus in front of his teammates? Seems as if Cuban could have handled that situation better, but Cuban handling sensitive situations with little to no sensitivity of his own is not news to anyone.
And Odom is a guy who is used to playing big minutes. Even in the sixth man role for the Lakers he was playing 30-plus minutes every game. One possibility for Odom's underwhelming play could have just been Rick Carlisle and the Mavericks not understanding how to use Odom, and thus not giving him the minutes he is used to. Odom is a very versatile player. He can't be seen as any one guy's backup. The Mavericks didn't seem to understand this, and Lakers captain Kobe Bryant would agree.
“It’s tough,” Bryant said. “He comes to a team that’s pretty much set, you know what I mean? So it’s hard for him to find his niche. The fans, they don’t really understand what he does or how he can do it, you know what I mean?
“I hope they don’t unlock that mystery. I know. I know how to use him and to use his skill set and this, that and the other. But with this team, the roster that they had being pretty much set, it’s tough for him to be able to find his groove here.”
So maybe some blame can be pointed at the higher ups. But maybe Odom just has to be in L.A. to be happy an successful. Maybe Odom should take Metta World Peace's advice.
David Stern: We can't forget that the reason that Odom didn't end up in New Orleans was because the Hornets are owned by the league, since the franchise wasn't making money, and because of that NBA commissioner David Stern took over as the action force behind the Hornets. During the Chris Paul negotiations, Stern had the last say on trades, and he vetoed that one after the teams involved had come to terms. But why did it even get that far? Follow me here. If the Hornets were in negotiations with the Lakers and Rockets about a trade that involved the face of their franchise, shouldn't Stern have been kept in the loop there? And if Stern knew about the serious negotiations and that there was a possibility of an agreement, why wouldn't he have stopped the talks before all the parties accepted the terms? If Stern had done his job and intervened before the three teams all did the leg work to put that deal together, the trade never would have been announced in the media, and Odom would have never had to have heard from a television set that the Lakers aimed to trade him.
Lamar Odom's lost season, the Mavericks diminishing championship defense hopes and this whole messy situation was the result of a large number of factors, and David Stern, Mark Cuban and Odom himself are the entities at the heart of it all.
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