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As his Martin Luther King Day reunion with the Los Angeles Lakers approaches, Lamar Odom has revealed that he was “real close” to walking away from the game for a season — or perhaps longer — well before his December trade to the Dallas Mavericks.
Left reeling by the July murder of his 24-year-old cousin and a fatal car accident days later that killed a teen pedestrian after the car he was riding in as a passenger collided with a motorcycle, Odom told ESPN.com that he had to be convinced by wife Khloe Kardashian to scrap his plans for a hiatus.
“Real close,” Odom said when asked Saturday how close he came to asking the Lakers for a season-long sabbatical.
“My wife talked me out of it.
“Cause I was asking myself: ‘Was I mentally prepared to play? If I didn’t play well, was I mentally prepared to help the team?’ I had thought, ‘Maybe I need a year.’ Because of the lockout, I thought, ‘Maybe somebody’s sending me a sign that I needed this time off.’
“(But) when I told some of my friends and my family that I was thinking about steppin’ back for a minute, I think the reaction from the closest people to me kind of gave me the energy to get back at it.”
— Reported by Marc Stein of ESPN.com
