Between the bright lights and darkness, Lamar Odom is burdened with his own 'True Hollywood Story'

Inside his Fresno State office, Jerry Tarkanian cradled that landline receiver between his ear and chin, pursuing an agenda with Lamar Odom that seemed to conflict with nature itself: Chasing the nation's No. 1 recruit away from Las Vegas.

"What are they going to do for you at Vegas?" I heard Tark ask him. "They'll get you laid, that's it."

Tark was out of the running for Odom, and wanted to make sure the teenage prodigy's one-and-done NBA lottery talent matriculated outside of his conference – never mind a Runnin' Rebels program that had cast Tark away.

Go to UConn, Tark told Odom on the phone. Or Kentucky.

"They'll get you ready for the NBA," Tark said.

As it turned out, Odom's college recruitment became one more manipulated cluster amid a lifetime of them. No one prepared Odom for much of anything – least of all a tortured, pained life of tragedy, celebrity and addiction.

Nearly 20 years later, the end threatened to come for Odom outside Vegas, in a "Cathouse" brothel chain made famous on – you guessed it – a television reality show. The spokesman for Odom's darkest hours turned out to be a legalized pimp named Dennis Hof. HBO abandoned his business' reality show years ago, but the owner of the Love Ranch has somehow found a way to use Odom's tragedy to rebrand his chain of family entertainment.

In recent days too, the Kardashians refused to stop exploiting Odom on that reality show, turning what appeared to be a lost soul in crisis reaching out to his ex-wife only to have his phone calls manufactured into Khloe-Kim argument fodder for one more dreadful episode.

Sex, drugs, a disconsolate Khloe, and Kobe leaving the Lakers locker room at the MGM Grand Arena to get to the hospital. Poor Lamar Odom, unwittingly delivering them a trailer.

So, Khloe ended up at his bedside in Vegas, with her mother, Kris Jenner, dramatically pacing outside Sunrise Hospital in Vegas. The Rev. Jesse Jackson emerged onto the scene to make public proclamations. All the way to the end, Odom played the part of a prop, a recurring character in the Kardashian cesspool.

Truth be told, the Kardashians transformed Odom's frailties and flaws into a societal fascination. Around the Lakers, they would always tell you that the scrutiny of the show played a part in his undoing, that it made a largely shy and private guy far more exposed and vulnerable than he ever imagined. Privately, Odom would tell friends that he never imagined the impact that an entanglement with the Kardashians' glare would have on his existence.

"You can get tickets for the Oscars, some good perks," he once told a friend, "but I had no idea what the rest of it would be like."

Odom had his demons, losing his mother to cancer, an infant son to SIDS. His father was an unstable and murky presence in his life. In a perfect world, Odom had Hall of Fame and max-contract talent. Only, Odom didn't live in a perfect world. He lived a tortured, pained existence.

Perhaps as a player, Odom found the best possible version available to himself. He didn't care much about conditioning, nor diet, nor did he immerse himself in honing his craft. He was far more comfortable to be voted the Sixth Man of the Year than chase MVPs and max contracts.

Odom tried to make a comeback in the fall of 2013 and made progress working with trainer Rob McClanaghan in Rhode Island. Odom had left Hollywood, returned to the serenity of his small-town college experience and started to make progress on a return to the NBA.

Soon, Khloe told Lamar of her plans to divorce him, he spiraled again and he'd never play another NBA game.

Mostly, it is people who've never interacted with Odom who shower him with scorn for his missteps and flaws. To his friends, he has been relentlessly kind and generous and loving. When Odom was winning championships with the Lakers, he was the most beloved, popular player in the locker room. When he made Team USA for the 2010 world championships in Turkey, it didn't matter that Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook were on the roster. Odom was the player with whom everyone gravitated.

Odom played 11 seasons with the Clippers and Lakers, and became an L.A. staple. He didn't only appear on "Entourage" with those calves that became an obsession of Johnny Drama's, but turned out to be the show's real-life embodiment. Lamar Odom was the kid out of Queens who made it big in Hollywood, only to end up on his deathbed in some lost, tragic place between the bright lights and the darkness.

Don't call me James wrote:Open Court is back

Freeza wrote:Yeah agreed with the spotlight that the show brought on him and the effect of it. It's really not as much The Kardashians' fault as it's just a result of his relationship with Khloe.

Any chance on him pulling through? So hard to watch one of your all time favourites like this. Those Lakers teams were the reason I fell in love with basketball. It was the first time I was able to watch it on television and Odom was a huge part of that team. Such a nice guy with an incredible talent, he should've been a HoF as Woj wrote, if everything went right. The rebounding, playmaking and overall skill for a guy his size is so rare.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

Internet

dmize wrote:Cavs giving bench players 82 million.

Literally laughed out loud when I saw he got it