Lamar Odom Returns to a Standing Ovation at Staples

What you see as a child affects your perceptions as a man.

The continuity of the Lakers rubbed off on me as a kid. Growing up in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, my heroes – year after year – were Gail Goodrich, Jerry West, Jimmy McMillian, Happy Hairston, and Wilt Chamberlain. They competed to their utmost abilities, and whether they won or lost, I watched them play their hearts out in playoff games against the Knicks, Celtics, and Bucks. Eventually they attained the ultimate prize – world champions in 1972.

Fast-forward to just before the start of the NBA season in December. Lamar Odom -- after contributing to Lakers team championship rings in 2009 and 2010 and being voted the best sixth man of the NBA during the season that the Lakers would lose in the playoffs to the Dallas Mavericks -- learned from the media that the Lakers were trying to trade him to obtain star point guard Chris Paul. The trade didn't go through, but Odom expressed bewilderment that he was on the chopping block and not informed by Lakers of the team’s intentions. Odom subsequently asked for a trade and soon thereafter the Lakers sent Odom to Dallas. 

This evening, Odom returned to Los Angeles as a Maverick to play against the Lakers. In a Los Angeles Times interview this morning, Odom, who is a power forward with a soft side to him, lamented, “The day you get traded, you walk into the team’s office and you see people walking around and they’re acting like your name is Lazarus instead of Lamar. You’re looking to get an insight into somebody and they’re eating food and stuffing their mouth and saying hello and goodbye at the same time. They won’t even look you in your eye. There was a lot of things that some people in business would consider cowardly.”

Lakers Center Pao Gasol, who himself was to be sent to Houston as part of the complex deal to get Paul, until NBA Commissioner David Stern nixed the deal,  lauded Odom: “(Lamar) is an unselfish, versatile guy that sacrifices himself for the benefit of the team always, and that’s the kind of player you like to have on your side.”

Yes, sometimes difficult decisions are brought on by tough economic times or business dynamics that require changes be made within an organization. But there are ways to ease the blows and make an individual feel that they were, and always will be, appreciated. While many will continue to argue if trading Lamar Odom helps or hinders the Los Angeles Lakers, few can argue that the way Odom was treated by the Lakers when they attempted to trade him for Chris Paul lacked dignity and respect for an athlete who was committed to the city in which he performed well.

When Odom was sent to Dallas, former Lakers coach Phil Jackson called Odom to say, “Get yourself together and defend your name.” 

Sputtering in his first season with the Mavericks, Odom is trying to heed Jackson’s advice. 

But it's difficult for Odom. Poking at his food while talking with the Los Angeles Times reporter as part of a breakfast interview, Odom showed an uneasiness with how he was treated by the Lakers management.

Richard Funess, a PR executive I once worked for when he headed up the Manning, Selvage & Lee office in Los Angeles, now a senior executive at Finn Partners,  heeds the words of Maya Angelou.  “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Clearly, the Lakers made Odom feel like dog excrement. 

While Lamar Odom makes millions of dollars and most American workers will never make a six-figure annual salary, I still feel for the individual – no matter the amount of their paycheck – who gives their all and is treated, in the end, like garbage.

Fortunately, for Odom, when he entered tonight's game between the Mavericks and the Lakers at Staples Center, he received a standing ovation from fans, while the television cameras fixed upon an applauding Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak, who was responsible for the Odom trade.

The Lakers’ Odom transaction was not the first time a loyal team member was shafted by a professional sports organization. In 1977, Ross Porter began his first of 28 seasons broadcasting for the Los Angeles Dodgers. On June 3, 1989, Porter set a record when he broadcast 22 straight innings without any replacement in a Dodger game against the Houston Astros at the Astrodome. The broadcast was heard on KABC Radio and was simulcast through KTTV. Following the 2004 season, after denying Porter a contract extension, the Dodgers hired former Yankee announcer Charley Steiner. Vin Scully – Porter’s longtime broadcast partner – did not resign in protest. But four months after Porter’s final inning with the Dodgers, Porter was inducted into the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame, and at the luncheon honoring him, Scully bowed his head slightly, and said, “Ross, I have not had this feeling since Jerry (Doggett) left us in 1997.”

Doggett died in 1997, and subsequently the Dodgers under the new owner at the time in 2004 -- the now infamous Frank McCord -- killed Ross Porter’s distinguished career by not renewing his contract. 

Could Vin Scully have saved his broadcast partner Ross Porter? Similarly, could the superstar that makes the Los Angeles Lakers franchise, Kobe Bryant, have stopped Lamar Odom from being traded? What did Scully and Bryant know about Porter and Odom, respectively, and when did they know it? 

Would protesting against how their colleagues were treated really have been the equivalent of occupational suicide? Could either Scully or Bryant – men whose finances are a-ok without either having to make a single more dollar -- have done more to stop their bosses from dismissing a colleague? At what point, when you see something distasteful occur in the workplace, is it imperative to speak up or even quit?