CBS2: I have learned that Lamar Odom had a phone conversation with Lakers owner Jerry Buss on Thursday. I am told the purpose of the call was to rebuild any bridges that Odom’s agent, Jeff Schwartz may have burned by not responding to the Lakers offer of 3-years $30 million, and 4-years for $36 million.

According to reports today, Miami is offering Odom a 5-year package.

He hopes those chats start again soon.

The Miami Heat, who traded Odom to the Los Angeles Lakers five years ago in the trade that brought Shaquille O’Neal(notes) to South Florida, have made the free agent forward an offer to return and help Wade once again. The team has not revealed terms of the offer, although it’s believed to be a five-year package that could be worth around $35 million.

“I want Lamar to do what’s best for him and his family because we love him as family, but on the other hand, we want him back home, to come home,” Wade said Friday in a telephone interview. “His house is still there. It’d be exciting to see what happens.”

Continue reading ‘Wade to Lamar Odom: ‘Come home’ to Miami Heat’

Sun-Sentinel: What was made clear in Riley’s private session was that the Heat’s interest in re-acquiring forward Lamar Odom from the Los Angeles Lakers is legitimate, with numbers being discussed that would approach the current Lakers’ free-agent offer that Odom has rejected, when accounting from Florida’s lack of state income tax and other options regarding payments.

While we can’t officially confirm this information, I think it’s fair to give you guys the heads up on what’s being discussed on the other side of TLN and invite you guys to partake in this conversation. Just a rumor, people!

LO back to the Lakers (4-year, $36 million)? [TLN Forums]

Reports out of Miami indicate the Heat are trying to sign Odom and trade for Carlos Boozer of the Utah Jazz in an attempt to satisfy Dwyane Wade’s demands for a beefed up roster next season.

Odom wants a five-season deal somewhere north of $45 million, which so far the Lakers haven’t offered to him. Talks have ceased for now after owner Jerry Buss took the Lakers’ offers of four years, $36 million or three years, $30 million off the table Monday.

It’s certainly possible the Lakers could resume talks with Odom and his agent, but it seems just as possible that Odom could be headed to South Florida soon.

What happens next depends on whether the Jazz decide to match the Portland Trail Blazers’ $32 million offer sheet to forward Paul Millsap, a restricted free agent. Nearly everyone around the league believes Utah will match and keep Millsap by the deadline at week’s end, which could trigger a frantic final round of negotations for Odom’s services.

The pickings left on the free-agent heap are slim, and were made even more difficult for the Lakers because they have exhausted their best spending tools.

They used the mid-level exception of $5.8 million on Ron Artest and the “bi-annual exception” of $1.99 million on Shannon Brown. All they have left at their disposal to sign a player is the veteran’s minimum annual salary because they are over the salary cap.

The veteran’s minimum is a sliding scale, starting at $457,588 for a rookie and going up to as much as $1.306 million for a veteran with 10 or more years of experience.

Then the issue becomes whether an unrestricted free agent will take less money from the Lakers because they are the NBA champions who have a chance to repeat and they play in Los Angeles.

The Lakers could do a sign-and-trade for Odom, or trade another player to get a quality player.

Continue reading ‘After Lamar Odom, the Lakers’ options aren’t pretty’

Bleacher Report: The Los Angeles Lakers Squad was named the best team of 2009 in the annual Espy Awards.

Led by their team captain Kobe Bryant, the Lakers won a Western Conference best 65-17 regular season record. They fought tough battles with the Utah Jazz, the Houston Rockets, the Denver Nuggets, and the Orlando Magic to win their fifteenth franchise championship.

Phil Jackson, the coach of the Lakers, was also named coach/manager of the year at the Espys.

“I had a lot of criticism after my first year,” Morrison said of his rookie season with the Charlotte Bobcats in 2006-07, having been the third overall pick in the NBA draft.

“I remember one website saying I was the worst player in the NBA. All that stuff.”

The 6-foot-8 forward is trying to find himself in Las Vegas — along with his shot — in the friendlier, light-on-defense confines of the NBA Summer League, at the wise suggestion of Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak.

Keeping it in perspective because, after all, this is summer league, not the heart of the NBA season, things are going well. He has averaged 20.8 points in four games. He scored 20 points against the Clippers on Monday, and had 17 points the next night against Oklahoma City.

“He’s a shot maker… and it looks to me like he’s playing with confidence,” Kupchak said during Monday’s game.

Continue reading ‘Morrison rides a hot hand in Las Vegas’

Just spoke with league source who said Odom wants at least what Marion got from Dallas (five years, $38.6 million) (via Twitter)

L.A. Times: … “I wish I could tell you this was a totally upbeat story, but it’s not, it’s tough,” Russ said. “Sometimes my father feels like he’s an old man who doesn’t have time to learn to talk again.”

Basketball brings him back.

Winter brightened considerably when Jackson recently visited on his way to his summer home in Montana. In typical Jackson fashion, it wasn’t announced, and none of Winter’s sons were there, just Tex and Phil.

Then came the phone call from Kupchak that really charged up the coach, a reminder that he had to get well soon so he could come to Los Angeles in November and pick up his championship ring.

“He really seems eager to make that happen,” said Brian, another son. “That’s something we’re planning on.”

The coach, it seems, just needs a little coaching. His family provided a mailing address: 32100 SW French Prairie Road, Number 228, Wilsonville, Ore., 97070.

After Tex Winter blessed our town with the triangle, perhaps it’s time for us to teach him about the full circle.