By 
After A Hectic Year On And Off The Court, Lamar Odom Is Ready For A Well Earned Break
The Candy Man! You’ve got to hand it to Lamar Odom.He may not show up every single night to be the versatile match-up nightmare that he can be when he’s focused and playing well, but he’s managed to handle his role in Los Angeles pretty darn well. He’s taken a back seat to Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol on offense, played good defense when it counts, and even managed to not let his first year of marraige to a Kardashian be prohibitively distracting.Now he’s a champion with the Los Angeles Lakers for the second time in as many years.Odom joined ESPN Radio Los Angeles live from the Lakers’ celebration parade to talk about the great fans in LA, winning a championship with his child hood friend Ron Artest and how the past twelve months have been hectic but very gratifying for him personally and professionally.
On how the true die hard Lakers fans are the ones who show up at the championship parades:
“A lot of the things that we do, when you’re talking about winning, what we’re doing here, we do it for the city. We understand the pride that we bring to this amazing city. And it’s great being part of it.”
On winning a championship with Ron Artest whom he grew up with back in New York City:
Yeah, doing it with Kobe and Pau and those guys, the way we came together, the way we lost and were able to win the next year was special. And I guess this one was a double bonus beating a team that we lost to, and then being able to do it with a childhood friend. People for us, you know a lot of people are proud. People that we played with, people that we played against, coaches that we played for, coaches that we played against, a whole basketball league back in New York City, from 10 to 17 year old leagues, to pro-ams, a lot of people are proud – and I think that was the most important moment of this championship for me. I got to do something special with a kid I grew up with.”
On this whirlwind of a past 12 months (two NBA titles and getting married):
“You know, it’s funny I was telling my wife Kloe this, I kind of got married in front of the public side, and then the next day after I got married I had training camp, I came right to camp, stayed in shape and did my job and really took my craft serious because I wanted a chance to win and I didn’t want anybody coming at me funny like ‘oh, he just got married he’s not focused’…and I’m tired as hell, excuse my language, I’m tired as heck. We’re going to go get on a plane tomorrow and go to Mexico. We’ve got a friend who’s got a compound down in Puerto Vallarta and we’re just going to chill and hang out. I’m going to give myself two weeks off and then start training for the World Championships. I’ll play in the World Championships this summer, and I look forward to that and then get ready for next year.”
Comments