LA Fans Want Lakers to Sign Odom & Ariza ASAP

Lakers fans hit the radio waves today with a campaign to get Lakers’ brass to resign Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza to new contracts for another opportunity to repeat as NBA champions next year.  Listen to Lakers fans, like Mario Urutia who was on 710 AM radio today, “ Let’s be honest…the 2009 NBA Championship would not have happened for the Lakers without Lamar Odom or Trevor Ariza.”

Side by side, Ariza and Odom celebrated. Still in uniform, their ready-made championship shirts wet with champagne, an empty bottle within arm’s reach. Trevor Ariza and Lamar Odom, new to this championship thing, huddled together on a bench inside the Los Angeles Lakers’ locker room. They looked a little unsure of themselves, of the whole delirious scene, and someone needed to tell them that, yeah, this was real. This was their moment, too. “If it was a movie, I couldn’t have ended it any better,” Ariza said. He laughed. He was thinking the same thing everyone was thinking.  “Hopefully, there will be a sequel.”  

Can the Lakers repeat? 3-peat? They’re talented enough, young enough, to make sure this season isn’t a one-and-done celebration, provided enough of them stay together. Ariza and Odom become free agents in a couple weeks, and for Lakers owner Jerry Buss, that means one thing: It’s time to pay.  The media will talk about the luxury tax, but let’s not get caught up in the NBA propaganda.  The Los Angeles Lakers are the most profitable team in professional sports and Jerry Buss has never has a problem paying the bill when he believes in his team.  Clearly Buss and Kupchack have faith in the this Lakers squad and I will be shocked if both Ariza and Odom are not resigned this summer.  Niether player is expendable and each player made significant contributions throughout the playoffs enroute to the 2009 NBA championship.

Watch Video with Lamar Odom Discussing his Lakers’ Depth This Season 

Ariza’s performance might have come as a surprise had he not done the same three nights earlier when he sparked the Lakers’ Game 4 comeback with a 13-point third quarter. Not a spot-up shooter? He made 40 3-pointers in 84 attempts during these playoffs. In 229 career games before this season, he’d made nine. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak followed Ariza during his lone season at UCLA and targeted him as a possible roster addition once he arrived in the NBA. He liked Ariza’s length and athleticism. But envisioning him as a starter in the Finals, a valued contributor on both ends of the floor?  “I couldn’t tell you with a straight face I knew that,” Kupchak said. Ariza might not have envisioned it himself. For much of the Finals, he downplayed the significance of facing the team that traded him. But as the Lakers celebrated late Sunday, he finally admitted the obvious: Winning on the Magic’s floor meant something.  “This,” he said, “was special.”

Odom said the same. He came to the Lakers five years ago from the Miami Heat as part of the package for Shaquille O’Neal. Two seasons later, Odom watched as the Heat won the championship without him. After the Lakers bowed out of last season’s Finals with a 39-point loss to the Boston Celtics, Odom shouldered much of the blame for the embarrassing collapse.  On Sunday, he played the role of hero. The Magic closed within five midway through the third quarter, and Odom answered with consecutive 3-pointers.  “I’ve always seen this coming, my day,” he said. “…It’s finally here, and it’s … overwhelming.”  Minutes earlier, Kupchak had stood in a quiet corner of the locker room with his son, Max, next to him. The champagne had already emptied, but Kupchak looked dry. Five years earlier, the Lakers dismantled their dynasty by trading Shaq. No one faced more heat during those three subsequent lost seasons than Kupchak, and no one deserves more credit for shaping the Lakers into a contender again.  This championship, Kupchak said, was special because it proved “the rebuilding stage had a beginning – and had an end. 

Truth be told, the Lakers would prefer not to change many of their ingredients. Ariza turns 24 at the end of the month and is due a nice raise from the $3 million he earned this season. To keep the midlevel suitors away from Ariza, the Lakers may need to pay him twice that in a contract extending four or five seasons. Odom is more complicated. He made $14 million, and he’ll need to take a pay cut to stay. Odom has said several times that he wants to retire as a rock-star on the Lakers and he’s willing to accept less. The question: How much less? Only a few opposing teams own significant salary-cap room, so leveraging the Lakers won’t be easy.