Lamar! Lamar! Step Away and Slowly Put the Candy Down

Lamar Odom, reigning sixth man of the year, is this week’s biggest joke in the NBA as he calls it quits with the champion Dallas Mavericks just three weeks shy of the postseason. It marks another less-than-stellar stint in the lean point forward’s career-long bout with underachievement.

Blessed with the wing span of a seven foot center, height at 6’10, the dribble game of a point guard and fluidity and body motion of a left handed George Gervin, Odom continues to self destruct and combust his NBA career with carelessness. The man is best-suited for reality television and Jenny Craig commercials, as he arrived this season, lackadaisical, pudgy and twenty pounds too heavy.

Heading into camp disenchanted with the sudden sweep of his services from sunny Los Angeles to down-home Dallas, Odom’s took a lesser bench role minimizing the possibility of a follow up to the 10-11’ campaign, his best to date. It does not take a brilliant mind to see clearly, the slack-jawed dope’s disinterest with hard work and maturity. During a career that began in the 1999 draft as clearly the most touted young prospect to enter the NBA ranks since Tim Duncan in 1997, Odom has lazily mustered a decent run out of what critics used to describe as astronomical natural talent. The one and done do-gooder withstood ongoing attacks from media during his college years (citations for marijuana use), with his natural god-gifted ability to command attention and paralyze a defense with a utilitarian style of play.

Most impressive were his comparisons to Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who also side-stepped off court tangles with a strong sense of leadership while in college. Odom, a one man show at mid-major University of Rhode Island, created quite a sway of delight with his involvement of his lesser dynamic teammates, leading a surprising URI team to the March Dance in 1999 as a devilish dark horse candidate. It was there, the quiet and sometimes aloof forward collected his comparisons and teased NBA scouts with the one-of-a kind intangibles of his services.

Without question, Odom was the most talented of any player selected in his draft, and entered the NBA on a red carpet. Perhaps it was the early silver spoon that ultimately disintegrated what could have been? Or maybe our computerized cultural environment of text messaging, iPhones, and Xbox 360, created the ugliness of a slothful giant more in love with the make-believe world of created images than the real, living and breathing one with skin?

There is no other musing to best segue the character of Lamar Odom.  I know for the man nicknamed LO, the frivolous list above has attracted his attention more than any notion of star potentiality, and that is grossly, grossly sad. He clearly was/is not hardwired with a hall of famer’s fight for perfection, and has been unfairly coddled with praise despite the poorest of work ethics.

His NBA 2K12 self on my Play Station is much more stubborn, strong willed and dominate. It proves how unfairly unstoppable the man is, if only he had the will to decide to put it all together. But the real Lamar Odom is none of those things. Rather, he is poorly-made with a stoner’s apathy and insatiable adolescent craze for children’s candy and late night video games.

Why, God, did you not bless others with his abilities?  He is at his very best when controlled by x, circle, square or triangle button.

Lamar Odom is a packaged product flawed from inception. He’s a jumbled logarithm on a 1080P television twisting and twirling in the air. He is not real. He was as he always is, a wayfarer with no need for direction. He’s an image. Lamar Odom is another unfortunate product of his environment without the fight to invent himself otherwise.