Hey Lamar, Can’t We Still be Friends? Sports Philosopher Says, ‘Lakers in 6 … Maybe 5!’

By Brad Eastland, t.s.p.

      You think Lamar Odom reads this column?

      And if he does, ‘you think he’s mad at me?

      Because I was just wondering.   I was wondering if it could possibly be more than just a coincidence that immediately after my column came out last week, wherein I criticized him with giddy enthusiasm, he decided to play a better brand of basketball.  

      Let’s be clear.   I raked Lamar over the coals pretty good.   Maligned his basketball I.Q., labeled him a chronic underachiever, actually compared him to that comical lay-up screwer-up of yore Happy Hairston, it wasn’t pretty.   Accurate, yes, but not pretty.

      And then the next day, in Game Five of the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets, he plays great and the Lakers win easily.   And then, in Game Six, he plays flat-out spectacular basketball and the Lakers whomp the Nuggets by an astonishing 27 points in their building.   Back-to-back great games.   Lamar Odom probably hasn’t played back-to-back great games since high school.

     Please understand, LVO fans, this is exactly what Lamar should do.   He should be putting great games together back-to-back.   In fact he should be putting great games together back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back.   He’s that good.   He’s nearly 7-feet tall, and yet can play any position on the floor.   He even dribbles well enough to bring the ball up court and distribute.   He can shoot the three-ball.   His arms are Frankenstein-long.   He can jump like a prong-horned antelope, and despite his poor boxing-out fundamentals he’s a terrific, prolific rebounder.   He’s under-the-radar; Kobe and Pau are the stars, they deservedly demand most of the other team’s worry and attention.   Therefore, you can’t double-team him.   And therefore he is—if properly motivated and inspired—the unfair advantage.

      That’s where I come in.  

      The Sports Philosopher to the rescue!   Laker loyalists everywhere, such as I, need to really rally ‘round our team right now, to help make sure nothing goes wrong this time, to make sure they avoid choking to death the way they did against the Celtics last year.   The two top chokers in that series were Lamar Odom and, to a lesser extent, Pau Gasol.   Don’t worry about Gasol.   He can be trusted.   He’s a bona fide star these days; consistent, reliable, a rock.   But Lamar is a different story.   We’ve never known what to expect from him, he’s up one day, down the next, and the next, and the next game after that.   He’s been allowed to skate by in a basketball trance his whole life.   While banking millions of dollars a year.   But teams have always paid Lamar for what he’s supposed to be, not what he is.  

      I say it stops right now.   The way I see it, all Lamar Odom needs is someone with a loud voice to place the focus of this series right smack where it belongs.   So hear goes: LAMAR, THIS SERIES IS ALL ABOUT YOU!   IT’S ALL ON YOU, BUDDY!   IF THE LAKERS LOSE IT’S GONNA BE YOUR FAULT, SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL RESOLVE TO PLAY UP TO YOUR POTENTIAL FOR TWO SOLID WEEKS, FOR A CHANGE.   EVERYONE ELSE ON THE TEAM IS GOING TO PLAY UP TO HIS POTENTIAL, EVERYONE ELSE WILL DO HIS PART, SO IF YOU DON’T, GUYS LIKE ME WILL MAKE SURE THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD KNOWS THE LAKERS LOST BECAUSE OF YOU AND YOUR USUAL BRAIN-DEAD, SHRINKING-VIOLET, SALARY-STEALING STYLE OF BASKETBALL, AND LAKER LOYALISTS EVERYWHERE—INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY KOBE BRYANT AND PHIL JACKSON—WILL HOLD IT AGAINST YOU TILL THE DAY YOU DIE.

      There.

      I don’t know about you but I feel better. 

      Now then, do I expect my column to actually influence how Lamar Odom plays these next two weeks?   By itself, maybe not.   But you have to start somewhere.   One guy tells another tells another, another, then another….you get the idea.   If the whole town is talking about being fed up with Lamar, it’s bound to get back to him eventually.

      Maybe the word-of-mouth thing is already working.   Have you seen his press conferences and media interviews lately?   It’s like he’s a whole ‘nother person!   Gone is the sweet, gentle, childlike Lamar we grew to love and loathe.   He’s surly, dour, frown-faced and, you know, downright mean.   Or at least mean sounding.   He doesn’t even smile.   And that’s after a victory.   Like he’s trying to make us believe he was once a button-man for a local street gang.   Talk about a guy trying to shed his “soft” image….

      This column is the logical next step.   We need to poke and prod and push Lamar into greatness.

      When this series is over and the media hounds gather together, and they surround Orlando head coach Stan Van Gundy, they will ask him what was the key to how the series turned out.   He’s going to be in a position to fire back one of two possible answers.   It’ll either be, “Well, we won because even though they’ve got Kobe Bryant, more talent, and a deeper bench, Lamar Odom is such a clueless, underachieving lout that we knew we could count on him to shift the balance of power to our advantage,”, or, “Well, we lost because even though we held our own with Kobe, Pau, Fish and the others, we couldn’t do anything with Lamar Odom.   He can’t be guarded, you can’t shoot over him, and he can’t be kept off the boards —he was the unfair advantage.”

      Which brings us to the brink of a prediction:

      In the final analysis, this series all comes down to Lamar.   If we get the sleepwalking Lamar of yesteryear, the one who the Celtics ran around over and through in last year’s finals, Orlando is going to steal this thing.   And Kobe and Phil will probably never fully fulfill their respective destinies.    But if we get the new-and-improved Lamar of last week against Denver, the one who performed like the focused, driven superstar his body and talent should have ensured half a decade ago, this series isn’t even close.   Lakers in six games, maybe as few as five.  

      So I’m going with the Lakers in six games.   Maybe five.

      Why take the Lakers?   Why fly in the face of Lamar’s underachieving history?   Easy.   The Lakers have a 15^th club in their bag this time.   They’ve got one advantage over Orlando they haven’t had in past playoffs, one they certainly didn’t have against Boston in last year’s finals.   They’ve got someone to finally give Lamar Odom what he’s always needed; a little tough love.  

They’ve got me.

  The Sports Philosopher

Brad Eastland is an author, historian, film buff, and sports nut, in no particular order.   Brad’s other recent columns for LaVerneOnline can be found in Sports under ‘The Sports Philosopher’ and also in Viewpoint under ‘Brad Eastland’s View’.    Brad has also written four novels and over 20 short-stories.    Samples of Brad’s fiction work can be discovered within the links below :
 
http://www.bosonbooks.com/boson/fiction/gamble/gamble.html
http://www.bosonbooks.com/boson/fiction/basket/basket.html
http://www.bosonbooks.com/boson/freebies/freebies.html