Lakers vs Heat Side by Side Comparison for Lamar Odom

In an effort to help Lamar Odom decide between the La Lakers and the Miami Heat, the boys at Lakers Buzz put together this side by side analysis so that #7 can compare apples to apples and make a sound decision. 

Lakers Need to Do the Right Thing and Pay Lamar Odom

I’m no Alan Greenspan when it comes to finance, but let’s start with a very basic premise, no advanced degree required: The Lakers and the luxury tax seem about as comfortable together in the same sentence as Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. I bring up the salary cap talk up because the Lakers seem to be playing the luxury tax card as they talk vaguely about what they can and cannot afford to pay their free-agent forward, Lamar Odom. The versatile Odom that created match-up problems for Lakers opponents every game, made about $14 million in 2009. Now there are hints about offering him the mid-level exception of $5-plus million, something like a 60% pay cut. You want to cut somebody? Ask Andrew Bynum to give some of that 52 mil back.

Now, it’s not my place to spend Jerry Buss’s money. If he wants to blow some of it on poker, 21 being a great number for both blackjack and girlfriends, that’s his business. But riddle me this: If the Cleveland Cavaliers can pay THEIR power forward, the klunky Anderson Varejao, $50 million and he’s about a quarter as good as Lamar Odom, are the Lakers telling us they can’t pay a talent like Odom $8 to $10 million?   And if the Cavaliers — remember, the market is Cleveland — can live with being $14 million over the cap, which they are today, why are the Lakers crying poor about being $12 million over?  Twelve million dollars? Isn’t that what it costs to park at Staples? Doesn’t $12 million represent about 20 games’ worth of profit from those yummy chicken burritos they jack you for at about $8 bucks a pop there?  Oh, and before we even get into how much the Lakers franchise is worth, the Dallas Mavericks are $26 million over the cap.  Mark Cuban spending to win while Jerry Buss cuts corners? Say it ain’t so. Now, the Lakers have been pretty clever in selling us on the cap. But if it’s a snow job, does that make it like the candy, Sno-Caps? Lessons in capology are coming out of Mitch Kupchak’s office every day. Lakers beat writers then dutifully carry the message to the public without investigating the profit side of the ledger, so we don’t get a balanced story where Lakers finances are concerned.

Right now the cap propaganda is getting so thick, I’m starting to think Kupchak has moved his office to the Kremlin.  Jerry Buss bought the Lakers (and hockey’s Kings, the Forum and a ranch in Bakersfield) for $38 million. Today most major financial publications estimate the Lakers’ worth at between $650 million and $900 million!  I believe this is known as a substantial profit. Wait, I mean windfall.  And boo hoo, they’re crying about a few mil in cap money?  I’ve known the good doctor Buss for 35 years and never once in all that time has he ever acted like Charlie Cheapskate. So in that context this Odom business, hard-balling such a key championship ingredient, does surprise and disappoint me.

The Lakers don’t sell cheap. They usually leave that to the team down the hall.  When you’re on the cusp of starting another run of championships, with two, three or even four in a row feasible, this is no time to channel Donald Sterling.  While you’re basking in the glow of the ’09 title, look around, Dr. Busschak. The Cavs got Shaq, the Celtics got ‘Sheed, the Spurs got Richard Jefferson and the Blazers are on the brink of getting Paul Millsap.   This is not the time for the Lakers to penny-pinch and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX_5o-mxH4wget left at the starting gate.   Cry about the cap? What’s next, passing the hat?  Besides, Odom’s been a good soldier. Occasionally, a great one, a three-star general.

Ask Lamar to start, he starts. Ask him to be sixth man, he’s sixth man. Ask him to bail out Andrew Bynum every time the kid is called for two fouls before he gets off the bus, which was just about every game in the playoffs, he bails out Bynum. Ask him to help you win a championship, you win a championship.   So don’t diss Odom, either. Show him the respect and appreciation he’s earned. Just because the market’s turned in the Lakers’ favor is no excuse to take undue advantage of it.   

Ten million a year for Lamar? A little too much. The market has changed. Money’s tighter. Lamar’s gonna have to live with it; it’s a fact of life.  But if you’ve given Ron Artest about $6.9 mil per when he has no history with the Lakers, other than getting in Kobe’s grill from the enemy side, then give Lamar at least the same annually. Or a little more because he’s been there for you. Say 8 per … $16 million for two years and call it a deal.  Dr. Busschak, nothing less than your reputation for doing the big, important things right and stylishly rests on it. Only that and winning the championship again next season.

Watch Lamar Odom Slap Kevin Garnett’s Celtic Ass

Article Written by Ted Green (Green formerly covered the Lakers for the L.A. Times. He is currently senior sports)

Classic Artest Quote to Kobe

Kobe said that after the Lakers lost game six of the ’08 NBA Finals in Boston by 39 points, he was alone in the shower, just fuming. He heard somebody walk in and assumed it was one of his teammates, or maybe a staff member. Instead, he looked up, and it was Ron Artest (to this day, Kobe has no idea how Artest got into the locker room).

“I want to come help you,” Artest said. “If I can, I’m going to find a way to come to LA and give you the help you need to win a title.”
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Ariza’s Agent is a Kook

Trevor Ariza’s Agent, David Lee should be a ashamed of representation for his client.  For him to be running around to the press saying the Lakers were snubbing him is a joke.  When in the history of the NBA has a non-center player who averaged 8 points and 3 rebounds a game ever been paid in the range of 8 million like Ariza’s agent has been claiming.  The Lakers offered him the mid-level exemption that starts at nearly 6 million a year.  Playing for the Lakers as a defending champion in your home town is priceless.  David Lee is kook for over-playing his hand.  I hope Trevor that you come to your senses, fire your agent and stay with the Lakers.

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.

Obama Predicts Lakers Win NBA Title in Six Games

You have to chuckle when you hear the President of the United States makes a prediction to the Associated Press that the Los Angeles Lakers will win the NBA title in 6 games.  Forget the fact the most NBA analysts also predicted the Lakers would beat the Magic in six games.  Forget the fact the Obama is a politician, not a sports analyst.  Maybe Vince Vaughn’s wife in Old School said it best when Luke Wilson was mauling her friend, “Inappropriate.”  Come on Barrack, you can’t take credit for the Lakers.