Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl
If there was any doubt about how Lamar Odom’s former teammates feel about his time as a Maverick, this story should end it pretty quickly. Per the Star Telegram:Â
“If Lamar Odom made any extra cash this season, it would have been with the reality TV show he did with his wife and not because of anything he did with the Dallas Mavericks. That’s because the Mavs players voted Sunday not to give Odom a share of the playoff money they earned this season. Instead, the Mavs decided to split their pool of money for finishing with the seventh-best record in the Western Conference and making the playoffs with the remaining 14 players on their roster.
With the total pot being $281,937, that means each player will receive $20,138.32. […] In 50 games for the Mavs, Odom averaged career lows of 6.6 points and 4.2 rebounds, and shot a career-low 35.2 percent from the field in a career-low 20.5 minutes per game. Then, on Apr. 9 the Mavs parted ways with Odom and placed him on the inactive list for the rest of the season. ‘If the Lamar thing would have worked out and if he would have played like the year before when he was the best sixth man, I think we would have had a shot,’ forward Dirk Nowitzki, reffering to the Mavs’ chances of advancing in the playoffs. ‘It would have given us another playmaker, another guy that’s long, that can defend and rebound. But for whatever reason the stuff he was going through off the court was just too much. He couldn’t help us the way he wanted, the way we wanted, and we had to move on without him.’â€
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FROM ESPN:
In public, Dallas Mavericks players have been diplomatic when discussing Lamar Odom’s failure to compete this season. Their truer feelings came out in a locker room vote Sunday, when they decided not to include Odom in their share of playoff money.
A team source confirmed that Odom will miss out on about a $14,000 playoff share.
“If the Lamar thing would have worked out and if he would have played like the year before when he was the best sixth man, I think we would have had a shot,” Dirk Nowitzki said of going deeper in the playoffs. “It would have given us another playmaker, another guy that’s long, that can defend and rebound.
“But for whatever reason the stuff he was going through off the court was just too much. He couldn’t help us the way he wanted, the way we wanted, and we had to move on without him.”
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said Saturday in retrospect he would still have made the trade for the versatile veteran forward.
“I’d do the exact same thing all over,” Cuban said. “You go for it. You hit on those things sometimes, and sometimes they don’t work. … He wasn’t the first player that didn’t work, and he won’t be the last.”
The defending champions were swept out of the first round of the playoffs Saturday night by theOklahoma City Thunder and cleaned out their lockers Sunday afternoon.
Odom hasn’t been with the team since Cuban dismissed the forward from the team at halftime of the Mavs’ game at Memphis on April 7. Cuban didn’t appreciate Odom’s sullen body language in the locker room, or his response to a question of whether he was in or out.
Odom was placed on the inactive list and soon after returned to Los Angeles with reality TV star wife Khloe Kardashian.
“I think we were hoping he would be able to come in and contribute and help us win this year, but it just didn’t work out that way,” Shawn Marionadded. “I think it is what it is, it’s (losing in the first round) not his fault and it’s not nobody’s, it’s all our faults collectively. You can’t put it on one person.”
The Mavs acquired Odom in a December trade from the Los Angeles Lakers, where he had played seven seasons, won two titles and the Sixth Man of the Year Award last season.
Odom was upset that the Lakers had included him in a trade to the New Orleans Hornets forChris Paul.
When that deal was quashed by NBA commissioner David Stern, Odom asked the Lakers to trade him. Odom’s agent, Jeff Schwartz, reached out to the Mavs and Cuban made the deal.
But Odom arrived in Dallas out of shape and reeling mentally from leaving Los Angeles and a difficult summer that included the death of a close cousin.
Odom averaged career lows of 6.6 points and 4.2 rebounds with the Mavericks. He shot a career-low 35.2 percent from the field and averaged just 20.5 minutes a game, by far the fewest in his 13-year career.
The Mavs will attempt to trade Odom. Any team that has him on its roster as of June 29 must buy him out by that date for $2.4 million or otherwise accept responsibility for the full $8.2 million that he is scheduled to make in 2012-13.
