LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL

It has been eight long months since the Lakers last saw the Dallas Mavericks. The World Champion Dallas Mavericks. Most basketball fans know how that went. Every Lakers fan knows how that went. An ugly four-game sweep that brought Phil Jackson’s last stand to its end. Jackson retired, a lot of people were fired and Mike Brown was hired. The last time Lamar Odom wore a Lakers uniform he was ejected for a vicious hit on Dirk Nowitzki. Times have changed.

Lamar Odom was Sixth Man of the Year last season, the heart and soul of the Lakers. The off-season was long—an acrimonious lockout was broken only when the players filed suit against the league in federal court. Hours before training camp was set to begin, Odom was offered as a key piece in the Chris Paul trade with the New Orleans Hornets. It was the deal that never was—torpedoed at the final moment by Commissioner Stern.

Odom was shell shocked and did what scorned lovers do. He demanded a divorce. The Lakers shipped him off to Dallas for a trade exception that they haven’t yet, and may never, use.

One of the best books on basketball that I have read is Sole Influence: Basketball, Corporate Greed, and the Corruption of America’s Youth. Written by Dan Wetzel & Don Yaeger, it is the story of AAU and NCAA machinery, about the sneaker wars and broken promises. The chapter about Lamar Odom is unforgettable. From playground days in Queens to a recruitment scandal that got him booted from UNLV. In his own words, a life lesson about having “too much, too soon.”

To say Odom has been touched by tragedy is to say just a little. His father was a heroin addict whom Lamar rarely saw growing up. His mother Cathy died of colon cancer when he was 12. He went to live with his grandmother, Mildred Mercer, whom he adored. She passed away eight years ago. In 2006, Odom’s infant son Jayden died in his crib from SIDS. This past summer a favorite cousin was murdered. This past summer, a car that Lamar and wife Khloe were passengers in, struck and killed a 15 year-old boy.

Christmas day could have been a basketball sanctuary. But instead, Odom found himself adrift. He hasn’t yet found his way with the Mavericks, telling SI’s Chris Mannix, “I’m not prepared I guess, to play. I don’t know if there’s anything else to say.”

I remember Lamar as a rookie with the Los Angeles Clippers, romping coast-to-coast, silky-smooth and smiling. It was a fun squad to watch and like most Clipper lineups, it didn’t last. He was used for one season in Miami as a straight-up power forward and then dealt to the Lakers during the first Phil Jackson exodus. We debated it endlessly in threads, Jackson returned and tinkered and prodded, and eventually just let Odom do his thing. He became a leader, was beloved by his teammates. He led each pregame huddle, words said and felt in a circle. 

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Trade talk comes from the media and agents and executives and fans. Players get used to it, they deflect through mechanisms, they chalk it up to business. Each summer Odom’s name came up and each time he laughed it off. He said it was good to be wanted. He said, “We’re all rock stars in L.A.” But it’s like the little boy who cried wolf. The rumors never materialized and he took less money to come back to a team he loved. He got married and ignored those who said it wouldn’t work. He put down roots and made plans. He decided there wasn't any wolf after all.

The Lakers lost the other night to their cross-hallway rivals, the eventual winners of the CP3 sweepstakes. It was an ugly loss but no more ugly than most of their recent wins. The Lakers may no longer be a pretty team to watch but they’re effective enough to be in contention in the west. Kobe Bryant’s play this season has been nothing short of stunning—he adjusted to a torn wrist by becoming the league’s scoring leader. Odom’s replacement is an amalgam of big white guys who run real hard for big white guys.

Thomas Wolfe famously wrote, ‘you can’t go home again,’ meaning you can return to a building or a place but not to a place in time. It is never quite as we remember, and we ourselves are not the same. It has also been interpreted as meaning that you can’t go home without being deemed a failure.

Just as Odom’s basketball game has often been elusive and transient, so has his life. He returns tonight to the Staples Center, as a visitor, unsure of what the outcome will be.

DANCING DOWN THE SIDEBOARDS

Last night felt gray and cold and inhospitable. Not sure how or why a pitch-black night would feel gray but at the very least I was in a funk, one of those off-balance places where the throat’s scratchy and the world moves haltingly and the skin feels paper thin.  Beware of darkness. The State of the Union was on and while I freely admit to being a fan of presidents who play basketball, the speech didn’t do much for me. It just seemed like a lot of peace-making talk about growing the economy, with marginal enthusiasm from either side. At this point in the life of American democracy the same pleas for compromise feel stale and tired, I can’t honestly recall a united congress during my lifetime and the most winning moments on a national scale usually come from trench warfare.

The night turned on a dime as it sometimes does, listening to a radio feed when alerted via tweet that the Lakers/Jazz were on NBA TV as the fan favorite pick of the week or some such. I caught hold of this unexpected bonanza late in the first period and rode with ever increasing contentment, though the entire lopsided train wreck - a 29-point margin and it didn’t feel that close. It’s not a good time to be the Jazz right now, it was their 5th loss in a row and would be followed by tonight’s loss at home to the Spurs. I wasn’t paying much attention to this particular debacle as I typed, figuring some things to simply be preordained but the Jazz did manage a late flurry that brought them momentarily close. I got distracted, burning a batch of chocolate chip cookies and catching up on important internet news items. Did you know that Dennis Kucinich is suing some restaurant for $150,000 because they put an un-pitted olive in his sandwich?

Last night's major deconstuction happened in the first half, a rending of stripped gears as Kobe fed the beast inside - Andrew Bynum turned  in another man-sized performance at both ends of the floor.  The hopelessness around you.  Steve Blake also did damage early, short minutes providing points, boards, dimes, a steal and easily controlling a jump ball against Andrei Kiilenko and it wasn't even close. Artest played tenacious perimeter defense and Lamar Odom scored 17 off the bench, including a stunning behind the backboard floater as he sailed out of bounds. The fourth quarter was occasion for quality garbage minutes, the mood was so resolutely awesome that Shannon Brown’s butchered (and uncontested) dunk was cause for joyous brotherhood. 

Not much to say about the Jazz in all of this. Kirilenko and Hayward each ran up and down the floor with their long locks shimmering in the lights like a Breck commercial, accomplishing little else. Some other guys also played, if you’d call it that. Jerry Sloan deserves better. I wasn’t thinking of it though, instead caught up in the transcendent stretches, the celebration of basketball, the visceral joy of an us-against-them beat-down that at least for me, gives way to quiet, more reflective moments, when once again it’s much too late, when the television goes off and the keyboard’s abandoned and duty calls to take the dog out one last time, shivering against the cold and willing him to hurry, when a warm bed beckons and morning will come too soon, when solitary thoughts can linger and surround in the dead of the night, kept away by the links inside our heads. And rocked to sleep with a great version of a song.

LIONS IN WINTER

I was listening to the game the other night and watching on a separate internet feed, shaky but clear enough to notice things - or was it?  How much is remembered the day after, when sleep has divided experience from perception?  How much is as I want it to be?  The Lakers were up in Oakland, having slaughtered the lambs of Cleveland in the previous frame. And now they were sucked into the Warriors run and gun once again, Nellie’s gone but he’s still here.

It terms of time and space, it was somewhere in the 4^th quarter, maybe halfway in, Lamar bringing us back on a nice run and Kobe on the bench taking a breather.  I didn’t see Jackson call his number or make eye contact - maybe it was one of those zen mind meld things - but Kobe got up, went over and whispered something in Phil’s ear and headed back out onto the floor. What followed was no surprise, just a stretch of classic basketball, Kobe picking up Monta Ellis’s gauntlet and sending it back, a blur of age and injury-defying moves, time standing still once more as it always seems to in this game when brilliance unfolds.  The body shouldn’t be able to anymore but it does. I saw a glimpse of faces, barely discernable, Phil looking up from his study of the woodgrain pattern, an eyebrow raised behind his glasses, maybe a smirk. Kobe giving just the slightest look toward the bench, like are you catching this?

Holly MacKenzie wrote a piece in The Basketball Jones about Kobe growing old and I linked it a previous post and I’ll do it again here because it’s on point - she tells of the bittersweet nature of the end game and bemoans its necessity, ruing the fact that our favorite players are taken away and vowing to enjoy the moments nonetheless. It’s heartfelt and it’s true but it’s also the perspective of a 25 year-old.

Being young does not diminish the clarity of observation. Indeed, age brings a somewhat scratchier view, analog versus digital, vinyl versus CD. Time becomes our bedfellow, an uneasy and sometimes unwilling alliance we make because we know its inevitability.  By now we’ve seen much of life and death, hardships and joy. We don’t welcome the ravages of time but we take them as they come, stretching like old cats for the remaining patches of warm sun. In much the same way, aging athletes pick their spots.  In my lifetime I’ve seen Ali come off the ropes with devastating flurries; Namath letting fly into the darkening rain and Kobe, taking over fourth quarters time and again. Wednesday night was just one more example; rebounds, assists, steals and a dizzying array of slashing, spinning, posting and scoring - capped off by a 3-point dagger with 43 seconds left, taxiing back up the runway, arms spread.

Kobe and Phil are lions in winter now, all too aware of their respective places on stage.  Kobe’s written nakedly about his climb to the mountaintop and Phil’s written a lot more than that.  A native son of the northern plains with Holy Rollers for parents, he has been seasoned by decades of hard court wars; as a player with the championship Knicks and coming up though the coaching badlands of the CBA, the Puerto Rican summer leagues, finding a home with the Bulls and finally two marathon stands with the Lakers, separated by the prickliest of divides.  And now, his self-described grand last stand.  He may toss off ironic lines with a bemused smile but he wants this last ring more than he wanted his first.

These aren’t the only aging icons in the game of course.  Every team has its lions and even more at home, there’s still Joe Smith and Theo Ratliff and Derek Fisher who started with Kobe and will likely end with him. And then there’s Lamar Odom whose light doesn’t seem to be fading but it’s his 12^th season after all.  He might finally have a chance at an All-Star berth but wouldn’t you know it, there’s young Blake Griffin and Kevin Love in the West.

We’re now six games into a winning streak, the doldrums hopefully behind. There will be infuriating moments ahead to be sure, stops and starts, ice bags, laryngitis and tea - but the muscles and joints are warming up, winter’s end will come into view and spring will once again bring rejuvenation and a flight toward the Holy Grail of our sport, the finals.  So I’m glad you’re determined to enjoy these bittersweet glory days, Holly. All things must pass but as Phil Jackson is fond of saying, "unceasing change turns the circle of life".