I suppose it’s a good thing that Mark Cuban is willing to sit and talk with his players about their feelings all the time. It’s also difficult to question the methods of the Dallas Mavericks owner these days too. He’s a billionaire CEO that just won and NBA Title, so I’ll go ahead and first admit that he knows way more about everything than I do.
That doesn’t make all these emotional talks he is having with Lamar Odom this season any less annoying however. He had another one this weekend too, fresh off a game against the Spurs where Mavericks Coach Rick Carlise decided his team was best served by keeping Odom on the bench for the whole the game.
This according to Dwain Price at Full-Court Press:
Mark Cuban had a fireside chat — minus the fire –with forward Lamar Odom for about 25 minutes prior to tonight’s game against the Houston Rockets.
Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, wanted to reassure Odom that everything is fine, and he also wanted to listen to whatever issues the former member of the Los Angeles Lakers wanted to discuss.
“Just talking,” Cuban said. “Lamar and I get along great.
“He’s an emotional guy and sometimes you just want to talk to the guy in charge. It’s no different conversation than I’ve had with Dirk (Nowitzki) and (Jason) Kidd and a lot of other guys.”
Odom was upset when he didn’t play in Friday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs. It was the first time Odom can recall that he didn’t play in a game when he was healthy.
I feel like Lamar Odom’s reality-star lifestyle is morphing into his life as an NBA Basketball player, and that is what is most annoying to me about all this. I watch sports, not reality television, but Lamar is turning this Mavericks season into the type of entertainment I spend my free hours avoiding.
It is time for Mr. Odom just to start playing better, and I really do not want to hear from him or his team about how he is feeling anymore. I was open to it initially because I am a sympathetic guy with feelings too, but enough is enough already. He didn’t get into the game because he isn’t playing well. Until he goes for 15 and 10 in an NBA game to close out this season, I don’t want to hear from him again. But I’m not as good a listener as Mark Cuban is.
