One of Lamar Odom’s final acts towards the sad end of his career involved a totally unprofessional tenure with the Dallas Mavericks.
Odom was traded to Dallas ahead of the 2011-2012 season against his wishes. He literally cried when he heard the Lakers were trading him. Odom reportedly abused drugs while a member of the Mavericks, didn’t play anywhere near his previous levels, and actually got booed. He eventually was benched by the team and then they severed ties before the season was up.
During his time with the Mavs, team owner Mark Cuban tried to motivate Odom. Odom says that included Cuban putting his foot on Odom one time, which the former forward did not appreciate.
“Only way that could have possibly worked is if he was like my father, or uncle … where I was f—ing up that bad where he kicked me. It wasn’t a karate kick, just a little nudge to my shin. But he did it with his foot,” Odom recalled in a recent interview with Vlad TV.
Odom acknowledges how poorly he played with Dallas and says he could apologize to Cuban for it.
“I was playing so bad and playing so bad for the marriage at that time I could possibly say to Mark Cuban, ‘I’m sorry, I could see where you had to prove your point. Because you’re paying me a lot of money. And I was performing way under where I should have been. So I could excuse you for that,'” Odom said.
But Odom warned Cuban about his conduct with the foot move.
“But don’t ever do that to a black man again. Because he might f— you up,” Odom said he would tell Cuban, via VladTV.
No other players have had similar complaints about Cuban in the past, so this may have been a 1-time thing with a player who was a colossal disaster, not that it excuses the owner.
The incident may have been part of the halftime confrontation we learned about that led to Odom’s ultimate departure from the team.
