Lamar Odom: The Final Piece (Blog for his return!)

The interesting part about the Ron Artest pick up is that now that the Lakers have a legitimate three and the possible improvements of Bynum and Farmar/Brown... the question may be asked, do the Lakers need Lamar Odom? I am quite certain that Mitch and Jerry have spoken about the possibilities of NOT having Lamar Odom now that they have picked up Ron Artest.

Assuming of course that is IF Lakers are healthy in the playoffs and Bynum returns to semi-dominance... the answer is no. However, once again those are gigantic IFs. The Lakers won this year because when Bynum went down Odom picked up the slack. People forget Kobe played injured, Farmar and Vujacic were injured as well. With Pau playing in Spain this summer, Bynum being twice injured, Odom, Artest and Kobe climbing up in years... injuries are bound to happen. I am almost certain that they shall have an injury amongst their key players.. look at San Antonio, Boston, New Orleans, Houston AND Orlando.

That left Denver and Cleveland as the only healthy legitimate shots to win the championship. Yes, Lamar Odom's value is rated by his high talent level, vast skills, his length, energy, defense, basketball IQ and friendship to Ron Artest. He is a mismatch and a nightmare for opposing teams.

However, his true value will be measured by how the Lakers deal under injuries. Odom's play reduces the chances of injury amongst the team. Odom's play will also alleviate transitions through injuries such that the Lakers were able to beat Boston and Cleveland on the road minus Andrew Bynum. And this goes vice versa for Odom being injured.Sorry Laker fans, I do not intend to "jinx" the Lakers, however, to play at such a high level of basketball without injuries is nearly impossible for teams nowadays.

If the Lakers allow Lamar Odom to go... they are so far over the cap that they shall need to use another and much lower exception to acquire a semi-decent talent to replace him. Since teams can match their own free agents cent for cent.... it is highly doubtful the Lakers can receive a fraction of the services of a gamechanger like Lamar Odom. If they let Lamar go... they need to hope for a veteran like PJ Brown to take an exception.

So, fans let us blog, write, text, tweet and influence as much as we can to convince Laker management and even convince Lamar Odom to re-sign with the Lakers. Our collective votes and voices can and will be heard by newspaper editors and writers.