Losing Odom will be tough to swallow

The Lakers need to improve their roster. That statement is more obvious than Brittney has a problem.

Any move the Lakers make to get a legitimate player in return will involve Lamar Odom. That is a given. Odom is the Lakers second best player, a versatile threat with a big salary who can make a trade work from the talent level and the salary cap aspect. The Lakers just don't have enough trade assets without including Odom. No, the Andrew Bynum for Jason Kidd deal will not reappear.
Kwame Brown's expiring contract is the only other major asset the Lakers have. Jordan Farmar is at this point still a throw in, but he is expendable with Javaris Crittenton on the team.

The biggest problem in trading Odom aside from receiving enough of an upgrade for the deal to make sense, is that Odom wants to be a Laker. He wants to play with Kobe. He wishes that his career ended in LA. The guy has to deal with the death of his instant son and has had to hear trade rumors on top of that for the past year. If anything, he has been a good soldier and deserves a ton of credit for the way he has handled himself. He's grown a lot from the weed smoking Lamar in his Clipper days.

So yes, if trading him helps the Lakers you have to do it, but I for one will miss Odom if he goes.

I don't believe what I just heard:

evan411web: dude the nugs signed stacey augmon
romoballa: i kno
evan411web: why can't we sign him
evan411web: i would take old ass stacey augmon over larry turner...another undersized center

Nice: Phil Jackson says he plans to start Ronny Turiaf.

Figures: Luke Walton, who recently signed a six year contract with the Lakers is banged up again before the season. Walton has a strained right hamstring and is day to day.

"We do know who the toilet-tissue paper players are," Jackson said with a smile about players sitting out because of minor injuries. "We make a note of that. Right now we've got a few of them.

"Luke's attrition in training camp -- he always seems to be a guy that'll miss [some] regular season because of a training-camp injury. We hope we averted it this time."


Random Laker of the Day: Ime Udoka