L.O., You Got to Go: The Lakers Must Trade Lamar Odom

You love his length, his versatility, his perfect basketball body.
You admire his humility and humanity.
You see his old-school selflessness on the court, how he passes first and prioritizes his teammates, how he deflects credit and accepts blame, and you think that he must be a very chill dude.
You empathize with his private struggles, particularly the tragic loss of his baby son.
You like almost everything about Lamar Odom, who he is, how he comports himself, how he plays hurt, his grace in the face of personal pain, and so you take absolutely no pleasure in what must be said if the Lakers are going to be anything more than what they’ve been since Odom arrived in Los Angeles, and that is average:
L.O., you got to go.
I could muddy up this story with stats: How he doesn’t make shots when they count in the fourth quarter, how he underperforms on the road; heck, I could stat you straight into a column coma. But there is only one stat and one only that matters:
Into the fourth year of their partnership, the Lakers are a .500 team fronted by Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom.
The chemistry, it’s not consistently there. The talented tandem, they play well on the same nights too infrequently. The results after three full seasons: one disaster (32 wins in ‘05) followed by two first-round playoff exits.
L.A.’s 9-8 start now in the face of a tough schedule holds some promise. And with the development of both Andrew Bynum and Jordan Farmar, plus the reacquisition of smart locker-room leader Derek Fisher, the Lakers win total SHOULD improve from the low 40’s of the past two years.
But significant progress, like 50-plus wins and a conference finals… I just don’t sense that’s going to happen while Kobe and Lamar are together.
Before you start with the emails, I’m not blaming Odom entirely. Kobe obviously isn’t easy to play with. Superman doesn’t do sidekicks. Plus for $10 million (growing to $12 million) a year to date the owner’s daughter, Phil Jackson hasn’t used those Hall of Fame credentials to instill any kind of real defensive mindset into his recent Laker teams, and that’s a big issue too.
Injuries have factored in as well. And I could argue that except for Odom, who would start on most but not every NBA team, the Lakers currently do not have one other forward who is a bona fide NBA starter, so it’s a weak position for the team.
Then there is fit. As in square peg, round hole. The Lakers need a real number two scorer to take pressure off Kobe. A guy who can pour in 18-20 a night, and go off for 35 when it’s needed. That’s not the role Odom naturally fills, nor one where his game best flourishes. (It’s more a job for Caron Butler, but that’s another column entirely…)
But except maybe for that one pre-Shaq in South Beach year when they did OK in Miami, I’m just not convinced Lamar is a winning player.
No one expected Odom to have Shaq-like impact after The Trade That Changed the Lakers, but in watching every Laker game since L.O. came to L.A., there have been too many missed jumpers, too often coming in the clutch. And those disappearing acts on the road? Lots of them, too. They do not happen with All-Star level players. All lead you to the inescapable conclusion that, after nine years in the league, despite the tantalizing talent, Lamar isn’t an All-Star caliber performer and never will be.
At least not alongside Kobe.
So much talent, so many skills, so much potential…but so much of it consistently unfulfilled with the Lakers.
Thing is, NBA teams are like scientific templates for 11th grade high school science teachers. They are one big, ongoing chemistry experiment. PJ and the Lakers have been in the lab with Kobe and L.O. for quite a while now, like 3 1/2 years, and all they really have to show for it is the smell of sulfur.
To be perfectly clear, I’m not suggesting the Lakers should have traded Odom and Bynum for J Kidd. Kidd’s a little long in the tooth for that. I’m glad they didn’t trade that pair for Jermaine O’Neal. The poor man’s O’Neal is only marginally better than Lamar straight up when healthy, and there’ve been some recent knee issues that indicate he isn’t physically sound at all.
What I am suggesting is that it’s time for the Lakers to commit to changing the chemistry, to acknowledge that Kobe and L.O. are a perfectly ordinary .500 partnership, to admit that it’s time to find a different, better, more productive way to go.
Artest? A gamble but intriguing.
Kirilenko, that’d be a no-brainer, but if the Jazz were dumb enough to do that, owner Larry Miller also has a nice used car to sell you.
Mitch Kupchak knows far better than I do what’s out there now in the way of a trade. It may be something. It may be nothing. But it’s reaching the point where every option should be explored fully. I know, it’s quite possible Mitch will tell you, don’t worry, it’ll be OK, we’ll be fine when Kwame comes back to anchor our defense and give us the toughness we’re missing right now in the paint.
Of course there are two small problems with that thinking: One, you’re relying on Kwame Brown, who can get hurt just walking in from the car. And two, we’ve already seen the Lakers at full strength with Kwame, and they don’t really cut it then, either.
So without having some kind of “in” with Mitch, and even knowing he’s the Bill Stoneman of L.A. basketball, here’s guessing the Lakers are going to revisit the Odom trade dialogue between now and the deadline.
If they don’t, they should.
And if no trade happens, brace yourself, Laker fans, for deva vu, year three.
Because like I said, L.O., love ya, bro, but you got to go.

by Ted Green

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