In April of 1999, two months before the NBA draft, I signed with agent Jeff Schwartz. The move raised a lot of eyebrows because at that point in his career, Jeff had very little experience dealing with NBA players. His major focus at the time was tennis. People scratched their heads and wondered why I would forgo bigger, more established names. The answer is that I had an instant rapport with Jeff, and he felt like the straightest shooter of the bunch. He was learning the NBA ropes, just as I was. I feel like I made the right decision because, to this day, he’s the only agent I’ve ever had.
Jeff set me up with a Nike sneaker deal, and even though it was less than what I could have gotten at Adidas, I didn’t mind because it’s where I wanted to be. We soon organized workouts and interviews with NBA teams and tested my value in the draft. I was happy things were moving in the right direction and even more so to have legitimate money in my pocket. Money that wasn’t under the table or passed through some shady back channel. It was money that I earned.
But having that money opened up a whole new world for me and divided my attention when I was supposed to be focused on the draft. All of a sudden, I had the most freedom I’d ever experienced in my life. Man, I wanted to have some fun.
The Chicago Bulls had the number-one pick in the draft and they wanted me. My dream of making it to the NBA was so close it almost didn’t feel real. It was both a stressful and exciting time as well as exhilarating and intoxicating. I was the center of attention, and new people were coming into my life left and right. There was nothing but opportunity in front of me.
The 1999 NBA draft was on the last Thursday of June and would take place in Washington, DC, at what was then the MCI Center, the home of the Washington Wizards.
The weekend before the draft, with most of my draft workouts out of the way, I wanted to blow off a little steam and hit Greekfest on Jones Beach, Long Island. Greekfest is one of the largest annual gatherings for young black people on the East Coast and attracts black fraternities, sororities, athletes, celebrities, and seemingly half of New York to party and hook up on the beach.
However, I was due to head to Chicago the next morning to work out for the Bulls top brass. They were sending a chartered jet for me to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, which is the preferred airport for private jets in the tristate area.
Greg called me Friday night to make sure I was ready to show the Bulls what I was all about. Kill the workout and I’d be the face of the franchise. I could start an era that picked up where Michael Jordan left off. What a dream.
“You ready to go?” Greg asked. “I’m gonna pick you up at nine in the morning to head to the airport.”
Bulls general manager Jerry Krause and head coach Tim Floyd would make the trip in that private jet to pick me up, and we’d do the interview on the two hour and forty-five-minute flight to Chicago. Then I’d work out at the practice facility as soon as we arrived.
About half an hour after Greg’s call, I called him back and told him the workout was canceled. He didn’t think anything of it. Happens all the time. Plus, we were new to the NBA and he didn’t know better.
“Come pick me up anyway,” I said. “We’re going to Greekfest.”
The next morning, we went to Greekfest and it was a blast. We were drinking, smoking, and meeting girls every ten steps we took. I had at least $10,000 in my pocket. I felt like a star because everybody knew me. In five days I’d be in the NBA. I felt great. This is the life, I thought.
Right in the middle of all the fun, sometime around 4 PM, Greg saw that he had about a dozen missed calls on his cell phone. Now you have to understand, this was the late 1990s and people didn’t check their phone every thirty seconds. Greg listened to the first message. It was Gary, and man, was he pissed. He was yelling so loud on the message we could barely make it out because of all the distortion.
“Where the fuck are you guys?” screamed Gary. “They’ve been waiting for six hours!”
“They” were Jerry Krause and Tim Floyd. They were waiting at the airport, just sitting on the plane, calling whoever they could to get ahold of us.
The truth is I lied. The workout wasn’t canceled. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be a Bull.
Looking back, I feel like I simply didn’t want the pressure or the responsibility. That was a damn bright spotlight. I believed in my abilities, and I’ve always stood out, but I like being in a situation where I share the load with my teammates. I didn’t want an entire franchise to rely on me. Or put their hopes in me. To be honest, I don’t know. I just knew I didn’t want to play for Chicago. Not even if it meant going down in history as the number-one overall pick.
The Vancouver Grizzlies had the second pick, and I didn’t want that either. They could have had Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, and I still wouldn’t have wanted to go there. I had Greg call Grizzlies general manager Stu Jackson the day after Greekfest and tell him we weren’t going to Vancouver and not to draft me. Greg was nineteen and had zero experience in dealing with agents or front-office people who didn’t want to talk to him in the first place. He was a sophomore guard at St. Francis University in New York, juggling a full course load. He wasn’t Jerry Maguire.
Meanwhile, Stu Jackson was the general manager of a franchise struggling to find a foothold. I could tell by the look on Greg’s face that he didn’t want to make that call. But neither did I. So he dialed the number.
“Excuse me, Mr. Jackson, this is a friend of Lamar Odom,” Greg started with an unsure, shaky voice. “He just wanted to let you know that he doesn’t want you to draft him. He’s not going to be happy in Vancouver. You know the knock on him is that he’s a little unstable. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any confusion.”
There was a pause on the line before Jackson replied.
“Who the fuck are you?” Jackson asked, none too pleased.
Greg handed the phone back to me.
“You talk to him,” he said. I just hung up the phone. That took care of Vancouver.
The Charlotte Hornets wanted a guard with the third pick so they were going to take Steve Francis or Baron Davis, whoever was available.
It was draft night, and the Clippers were on the clock. The phones were buzzing like crazy. Jeff Schwartz had been working the lines with several different teams all day. But I did not want to go to the Clippers. Anywhere but the Clippers. They were perennially the worst franchise in the NBA. The league’s doormat. Last in everything, including respectability. But I was running out of options because I wasn’t going to last very long on the draft board.
Jeff picked up the phone for the last time before the selection would be announced. It was Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor telling him that they were taking me with the fourth pick.
I was officially a franchise savior.
Welcome to the NBA, Lamar.
I had taken care of all my loose ends in New York, and everything was set up in Los Angeles. I was about to start the journey of a lifetime. But there was one last thing I had to do. Or, I should say, one thing Liza wanted me to do: visit my mother. It had been seven years since my mother died, and I had never been to her grave. The thought of visiting the cemetery was just too much for me.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it,” I said.
“You have to go,” said Liza. “To say goodbye. For her. And for you.”
So, we all went. My grandmother, Aunt JaNean, Liza, and several cousins. When we got there, I could feel anxiety and nervousness coursing through my body. I had never gotten any kind of therapy or help for my mental state. Her passing led directly to the larger problems I had as an adult, and I’ve never been eager to confront them, despite knowing the root causes.
But there at that cemetery was a chance for me to start. My eyes welled up as everyone gave me a moment to be alone with my mom. I could feel my hands sweating and my chest tightening. It didn’t seem real that my mother was right there. I was this close to Mommy. I tried not to think about the pain and to instead remember the good times and the things she taught me. I wondered how proud she would be if she could see where I was going.
What would she think of me? Did I turn out the way she thought I would? Was I the man she thought I’d be? What would she say to me? What would I say to her?
I laid down a number 7 Clippers jersey on her grave. I wiped the tears from my eyes and said goodbye to Cathy Celestine Odom.
Liza was thrilled that I had finally achieved my dream, but the moment was bittersweet for her. She wasn’t exactly thrilled about me going to Los Angeles; New York would always be her home. Plus, lurid stories about all the beautiful women, temptations, and glitzy parties were not in short supply, and she knew me all too well. She didn’t relish the idea of me being within arm’s reach of so many willing and eager young ladies. So we needed to plot out our future.
“I want us to be a family,” I told her as we sat on the couch in her mother’s living room. “I want us to be together. It wouldn’t be LA without you.”
Knowing that I wanted her in my life and close to me allayed some of her fears. Right away I started to make preparations for the big move to Los Angeles. We got a three-bedroom condo in a towering glass building in Marina del Rey, which was a popular spot with a lot of guys on the team. We were right on the water in a trendy neighborhood. All you had to do to get to the Staples Center was jump on Washington Boulevard for the twenty-minute drive.
Liza was excited for this adventure, but it was difficult for her to get adjusted to her new life. Neither one of us had a driver’s license, which made getting around tough. My friend Alex Harris drove me to practices and games, but when I was away, Liza was stuck at home. She was nineteen with a baby and no social circle. I hired a driver so she could get out of the house. That gave her a little more freedom, but it wasn’t enough. There was no getting around the fact that she didn’t have any friends, and it was difficult for her to meet people. She made friends with my teammate Maurice Taylor’s girlfriend and future wife, Tiffany, who helped her navigate her new world. But Liza needed more.
I offered to fly her cousin Kevin, who she was really close with, to LA, so at least she’d have some company when I’d be gone on long road trips. That made things a little easier for her, and Liza began to settle into a comfortable routine.
Shortly after, my first NBA training camp rolled around, and I was as excited as anyone to get started. As was normally the case with me, I played very little basketball over the summer. Factoring in moving to a new city and tying up loose ends in an old one, I rarely had time to step on the court, but I was still in really good shape.
When I arrived at my first practice, I was not impressed with what I saw. Back then the Clippers practiced at Southwest College, a community college not far from South Central, while classes were in session. Students would peek through the double doors of the gym while we worked on defensive rotations or ran sprints.
When it got hot in the gym, we propped open the back door with a cinder block. There was no security. Anyone could walk in, and they often did. There wasn’t even a place to shower. We had to drive home in our sweaty practice gear. If someone needed some muscle work, a trainer propped up a massage table at the end of the court.
The facilities were the worst in the league, and part of the reason the Clippers were a laughingstock had to do with the tight-fisted owner, Donald Sterling. The facilities were barely suitable for a junior college team, let alone an NBA franchise.
I had envisioned everything in the NBA being top-notch, so this didn’t come close to matching my hopes. Hell, we had better facilities at Rhode Island. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence or project a championship attitude, but titles were a long way off with or without the amenities. The Clippers hadn’t even been to the playoffs since 1993 or won a playoff series since 1976.
We were projected to finish at the bottom of the Pacific Division, which was not surprising since our team was a collection of journeyman veterans and players even avid fans had never heard of. We were a decent bunch of guys, but it was a hodgepodge of players just thrown together.
Our first game was November 2, 1999, at the brand-spanking-new Staples Center. I remember everything being so clean. It was the opposite of where we practiced. When I walked into our locker room and saw my jersey hanging in my locker, I stopped in my tracks. I was finally here.
When I slipped the jersey over my head, I walked over to a mirror and stared. It hit me that all my hard work, all the pain, all the sacrifice had led me directly to this exact moment standing in front of this mirror. There I was, looking back at me. I smiled because there was one inescapable fact.
“I’m in the NBA,” I said out loud.
My debut couldn’t have gone better. I might as well have been at Lincoln Park. No one could guard me. I was smooth with the ball, and no one knew how to play me. They were confused by a six-foot-ten, left-handed point forward who could dribble like a guard and played with crazy swagger. We opened against the Seattle Supersonics and their two stars, Vin Baker and Horace Grant, had no idea what to do about me. They had guarded near the basket their entire careers and looked afraid to step out to the perimeter to check me.
I sliced them up for thirty points, twelve rebounds, three assists, two blocks, and two steals. The Clippers looked like geniuses for picking me. It was just one game, but I came off like the franchise-saving superstar everyone imagined I would be. I thought: This is going to be easy. I’m going to tear this league apart.
Things took off from there as I scored double figures in my first nineteen games and won NBA Rookie of the Month for November. After every game, the star from the other team would stop me with praise. The same, however, couldn’t be said about the Clippers. We started the season 4–16, including a crushing nine-game losing streak in December. Things never got better, and after falling to 11–34, head coach Chris Ford was fired. We were second to last in points scored and points allowed. Not a winning combination. The Clippers were also second to last in attendance. Some nights you could hear people talking on the concourse level while the game was in progress. We finished the season with the worst record in the league at 15–67.
But I was really satisfied with my rookie year. I made First Team All-Rookie with averages of 16.6 points, 7.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.3 blocks, and 1.2 steals, delivering on my promise in a big way. I felt like the sky was the limit. If I didn’t win MVP someday, it would be my own fault. I was thinking big.