Lamar Odom is an American retired professional basketball player. As a member of the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA), he won NBA championships in 2009 and 2010 and was named the NBA Sixth Man of the Year in 2011.
Find out more facts about him, here!
1. Lamar Joseph Odom was born November 6, 1979, in South Jamaica, Queens, New York City.
2. He is the son of Joe Odom and Cathy Mercer.
3. His father was a heroin addict, and Odom’s mother died of colon cancer when he was twelve years old.At her deathbed, Odom’s mom told him: “Be nice to everybody”.
4. At her deathbed, Odom’s mom told him: “Be nice to everybody”.
5. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mildred Mercer.
6. In his first three years of high school, Odom played for Christ The King Regional High School in Middle Village, Queens.
7. He left the school at the start of his senior year due to poor grades, transferring first to Redemption Christian Academy in Troy, New York and then to the now-defunct St. Thomas Aquinas High School in New Britain, Connecticut, where he was coached by Jerry DeGregorio.
8. As a senior, Odom was recognized nationally as the Parade Player of the Year in 1997.
9. He also was named to the Parade All-American First Team for the second consecutive year,[10] and earned USA Today All-USA 1st Team honors.
10. During his youth, Odom was teamed with future NBA players Elton Brand and Ron Artest (later known as Metta World Peace) on the same AAU team, and played with future Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant at Adidas ABCD camps.
11. Adidas executiveSonny Vaccaro commented at the time that Odom possessed a “$2 million smile”.
12. As a high school player, Odom received national player of the year honors from Parade in 1997. He played college
13. He played college basketball forr the University of Rhode Island, earning all-conference honors in his only season in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
14. He was drafted in the first round of the 1999 NBA draft with the fourth overall pick by the Los Angeles Clippers.
15. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie Team, but twice he violated the league’s drug policy in his four seasons with the Clippers.
16. He signed as a restricted free agent with the Miami Heat, where he played one season in 2003–04 before being traded to the Lakers.
17. Odom spent seven seasons with the Lakers, who traded him to the Dallas Mavericks in 2011.
18. After the move, his career declined. He was traded back to the Clippers in 2012 and played briefly in Spain in 2014.
19. Odom played on the United States national team, winning a bronze medal in the Olympics in 2004 and gold in the FIBA World Championship (known later as the World Cup) in 2010.
20. He married Khloé Kardashian in 2009, and has made several appearances on her family’s reality television show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians. He and Kardashian also had their own reality series, Khloé & Lamar.
21. Odom has struggled for years with drug addiction. Sources close to Odom told ET online that he wasn’t a bad person, but he struggled with demons. The sources said: “When Lamar is good, he’s good. But when he’s bad, there’s no way of getting any worse.”
22. A source told Radar Online that Odom checked himself into rehab in August 2012, with encouragement from the Kardashians.
23. But he’s still been struggling, despite the rehab attempts. In 2013, he was arrested for a DUI.
24. In September 2013, TMZ reported that he was holed up in a private home with two women and crack cocaine.
25. All this happened while Odom also dealt with personal tragedies, The Daily Mail reported. His son Jayden died of sudden infant death syndrome in 2006.
26. In 2011, his cousin was murdered in New York.
27. Three days later, Odom was riding in an SUV when the driver lost control and hit a pedestrian, 15-year-old Awsaf Alvi Islam, who later died. Odom said, “Death always seems to be around me.” He said all those deaths were beating him down.
28. Odom’s best friend, Jamie Sangouthai, died from complications related to a drug overdose in June 2015. Sangouthai died after contracting a flesh-eating bacteria from a dirty needle.
29. In 2001, he was suspended from the Los Angeles Clippers after testing positive for marijuana, Radar Online reported.
30. He was tested again in 2013, but that test only showed Oxycontin in his system, for which he had a prescription.
31. However, teammates still tried to hold an intervention for him later that year and he rejected their attempts. Radar Online has indicated that particular intervention may have been for a new addiction to prescription drugs, Oxycontin and Ambien.
32. Odom was ultimately dropped from the LA Clippers in 2013 after his performance suffered, possibly from his drug use.
33. On October 13, 2015, Odom was hospitalized after being discovered unconscious at the Love Ranch, a brothel in Crystal, Nevada.
34. He was in a coma and placed on life support in a hospital in Las Vegas for a few days before regaining consciousness. He had suffered several strokes and kidney failure.
35. He was transferred from Las Vegas to a Los Angeles hospital by medical transport.
36, In the aftermath of the incident, Odom and Kardashian decided to call off their divorce.
37. She explained that they had not reconciled but had withdrawn the divorce so that she might assist him in making medical decisions during his recovery.
38. Odom’s recovery has gone well. On January 8, 2016, Odom’s paternal aunt JaNean Mercer told Us Weekly that “the former NBA star is on the road to recovery after finally leaving the hospital earlier in the week.”
39. She stated “Lamar continues to make remarkable strides.”
40. Khloé Kardashian said “I’m just there to support and care for him. But he is doing amazing.”
41. Odom told Hollywood Life that before the divorce of the couple, he plans to get Khloe Kardashian back and that he was okay with her filing for divorce
42, Lamar majored in communications during his time at Rhode Island.
43. He loves to sing.
44. His hobbies include listening to music, especially Jay-Z, and shopping.
45. His favorites include Goodfellas (movie), Martin (TV show), and Malcolm X by Alex Haley.
46. Lamar has a daughter, Destiny, and a son, Lamar, Jr.
47. His best friend outside of the NBA is NFL cornerback Will Poole. They met in high school in 1995, and have stayed in close contact ever since.
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