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Lamar Odom said his meeting with Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle on Feb. 21 was positive despite the nature of the discussions.
The meeting came the day before the Mavs played the Lakers, a game Odom missed when he returned home to Los Angeles to tend to a personal issue.
“I had to make myself think it was a positive that he’s coming to talk to me,” Odom said before Monday’s game against Oklahoma City. “When you’re in this business and when they don’t talk to you is when it’s a problem.”
Odom said he knew he had a decision to make, but he didn’t inform Carlisle at the time.
“We had a great meeting with him to make sure that he understood that our expectation is not that he be concerned about his stats,” Carlisle said. “It’s that any time he steps on the floor he’s completely into the game playing full out with as much intensity and presence and energy as he can, and the other stuff will take are of itself.
“We had a very positive meeting that day and the next morning he got a phone call that there’s a serious thing going on and he had to leave us for a while.”
— Reported by Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
