The Lakerhead

Odom Still a Free Agent? Laughable

Lamar Odom somehow said no a 3-year, $30 million dollar contract and a 4-year, $36 million dollar contract offered by the world champion Los Angeles Lakers.

Latrell Sprewell would have been proud.  It must be getting really difficult to feed families these days.

Odom loves L.A.  He just won a championship.  And it’s the most money he would make from any team.

You Know Who Deserves a $50 Million Dollar Contract at 30, Lamar? A Finals MVP.

Jeff Schwartz is a smart, successful man, representing the likes of Paul Pierce, Shawn Marion, and ours truly, Lamar Odom.

But the sports agent must have misplaced his dictionary over the summer.  So I’ll help him out with the definition of a few key words:

Negotiation - to arrange for or bring about through conference, discussion, and compromise.

Advantage - superiority of position or condition

Odom’s camp neither compromised or had any advantage here.  Yet, in classic agent auto-pilot mode, Schwartz tried to get more than reasonable for his client.

Lamar Odom has never been an All-Star, and is being offered $9-$10 million a year by the best team in basketball.  Anyone who follows the league knows this deal is a bit overpaying by the Lakers.

But instead of taking the deal, Odom was talked into waiting it out for a more ridiculous deal of 5 years, $50 million dollars.

If you can say one thing about Lakers owner Jerry Buss, is that he’s old school.  The man who values loyalty and fairness was justifyibly livid about the Odom camp trying to take advantage of the Lakers, and pulled his offers off the table.

Even Pat Riley Knows What Lamar is Worth, Which is Less Than What the Lakers are Offering Him.

Then, Miami got interested.  They’re offering Odom with the 5 year contract he wanted for…drumroll please…$35 million dollars.   $7 mil a year instead of the $9 or $10 mil the Lakers were offering.  He’d have to work an extra year to make $1 million dollars less.

Poetic justice has never been swifter in the free agency market of the NBA.  Odom’s bluff has been called, and he’s only holding a pair.

Now there have been reports that Odom has called Buss to recall negotiations.  Hopefully, this means we can say welcome back, Lamar.

But let this serve as yet another swift reminder that the Lakers are bigger than any one player.  Bigger than Shaq, bigger than Kobe, bigger than the Logo, Jerry West himself.  Certainly bigger than a candy-eating, unlimited skills, Bynum-insurance, big man.

If I were Buss, I’d cut the deal to $8 mil a year and some Pop Rocks to drive the message home.  The Lakers are the biggest thing in basketball.  Shape up or ship out.