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FWD: Bob Ryan Raves About Lamar Odom/Takes Shot At Antoine
[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]
[Boston Globe Online / Sports]
Odom becomes an oasis in the basketball desert
By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist, 11/14/98
Frustrated by the mutual suicide run that is the
NBA lockout and just plain bored in general, I
went to Providence Monday night to see the official
collegiate debut of Lamar Odom.
Full disclosure: I went to the Civic Center as a
suspicious and perhaps even downright hostile witness. I
went to bury this kid, not to praise him. I could not
stomach the hype. I wanted him to be Dontonio Wingfield,
yet another useless, overrated player elevated to
premature greatness beyond all reason by foolish people
whose computers and microphones ought to be confiscated
for the good of the sports fan, if not all mankind.
So before I issue my report, I would suggest that if you
are standing, you sit down, and that if you are sitting
down, you might consider stretching out on the nearest
sofa.
I come to you as Mr. Basketball Conservative, Mr. Hard
Marker, Mr. Very Hard To Please, and Mr. Guardian Of The
Game's Integrity, and I am here to say that the kid I so
wanted to hate turns out to be the most intriguing player
to come into the college game since Larry and Magic.
No one knows how this will all turn out, of course.
Corruption of some sort is the almost inevitable state
when a young man progresses through our increasingly
reprehensible system, but what I can assure you is that
Lamar Odom has a rare gift. Even better, he seems to
understand what he has and is unlikely to abuse it, at
least in the short run.
He comes to us with baggage. There were school changes
upon school changes before he landed at the University of
Rhode Island, and he stands accused of some sort
chicanery with regard to his ACT score. Should he really
be in college at all? I surely don't know, and frankly, I
don't care, either, because anyone who thinks either
Division 1-A football or Division 1 basketball is pure is
pathetically naive.
I'm just talking basketball here. I love the game,
although my fidelity has been put to the test by this
sorry NBA spectacle. That is why Lamar Odom is important.
It is almost as if he has been placed in our midst to
divert our attention from that NBA mess. When you see
this kid play the game the way he does, and that means
with skill, imagination and - how's this? - joie de
vivre, it is a much-needed reminder why we are sports
fans in the first place. We are not fans because we enjoy
monitoring negotiating sessions. We are fans because
certain athletes can perform feats that titillate our
senses and emotions.
Not since Magic Johnson has anyone been able to make the
following statement: Lamar Odom is a completely
legitimate 6-foot-10-inch guard. We have endured nearly
two decades of wannabes, and now we have the real thing.
He is not Magic; he is Lamar. Right now that is quite
enough.
The bare bones of his debut are easy to document. He
submitted a 19-14-9 line while spending most of the game
running the team after starting point guard Preston
Murphy sprained his ankle. The striking thing is not so
much the fact that Odom possesses the technical skill to
play point guard at 6-10, but that he is in full
possession of the mental requirements of the position. He
fulfills Rule 1 of the Bob Cousy litmus test for a point
guard. ''When the man passes midcourt,'' quoth The Cooz,
''is he thinking pass first or shoot first?''
Odom took 13 shots. He had 9 assists. Any questions?
But those are numbers. I saw what he did. He forced
nothing for himself. He is selfless to such a fault, I am
sure this will be the only conceivable NBA rap (''He
won't take over,'' or some such nonsense). Upon finding
himself involved in a size mismatch with 5-9 TCU point
guard Prince Fowler, he patiently manipulated the
situation, not to get himself a shot but to get himself
in position to pass over the diminutive guard for an
efficient 2 for, I believe, center Luther Clay.
For the chosen few, the game is a deceptively logical
exercise. Odom already knows what many a contemporary
multi-time NBA All-Star doesn't, and I won't even stoop
to compare his elevated understanding of the game to that
of a certain locally based ''veteran'' All-Star.
He plays a no-frills, fundamentals-based game that would
be recognizable to someone who hadn't seen an NBA contest
since Bill Russell retired. Imagine. No wiggles. No
dances. No finger-pointing. Not even any needless
between-the-legs dribbles.
''Basketball is a simple game,'' he explained after
making the winning basket. ''You don't need to make it
fancy. I don't think it's that hard. You can make it easy
on yourself by thinking one play ahead.''
About that basket. ''They were in a zone,'' he recounted.
''Coach [Jim Harrick] told me to attack with eight
seconds left. I put on a hard dribble and got an easy
layup.''
Did he say, '' easy layup ''? The basket in question was
a Gervinesque 6- or 8-foot finger roll. Degree of
difficulty: 2.2.
With Odom in the lineup, URI, which plays archenemy
Providence in a sold-out Civic Center today, is capable
of beating anybody in the country. The Rams won't,
naturally, but they could. But that's not the point for
us neutrals. The point is that we don't care whether the
NBA players will get 50, 52, 57, or 99 percent of the
gross. We don't care that Kenny Anderson might have to
sell off one of his eight luxury cars. We don't care that
(owners don't seem to have the simple capacity to say no
when it comes to signing these people ($5 million a year
for Jim McIlvaine?). Most fans have moved from apathy to
''Go away and don't bother me, and I hope you all get
jock itch.''
The point is that we do have basketball. College
basketball. I don't want to burden Lamar Odom with being
a savior, but I can assure you he already brings more to
the table than 90 percent of the current NBA population.
Who could have imagined a night in Providence would be so
uplifting?
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist.
This story ran on page G01 of the Boston Globe on
11/14/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
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