Former NBA forward Lamar Odom revealed the four players that he would play with if he could pick four former teammates that he played with in his career.
Odom explained on the Knuckleheads podcast with Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson that he’d choose Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Udonis Haslem out of all of his former teammates. Richardson and Miles – who also played with Odom – told him to leave them out of his list so he didn’t feel obligated to put them in.
“Imma say D-Wade, Kobe, Pau and not including y’all, I’ma say Udonis Haslem,” Odom said.
Haslem was the only non-Hall of Famer on the list, but Odom explained why he would put the Heat legend in his five.
“When I think about Udonis Haslem, I think about his last run with the Heat,” Odom said. “I think about – damn – how his players look at him. I know how they look at him. They respect him.”
A three-time NBA champion, Haslem has been one of the most respected figures in the NBA, and the Heat kept him on the roster for several seasons – despite him not playing major minutes – because of his invaluable leadership qualities.
During his time in Miami, Haslem won three NBA titles.
Bryant and Gasol are choices that almost every Lakers fan would have guessed, as they won two NBA titles with Odom during their careers.
The trio helped the Lakers win in the 2009 NBA Finals against the Orlando Magic and the 2010 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics. Odom was extremely important to those championship teams, averaging 13.7 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game while shooting 49.1 percent from the field and 33.0 percent from beyond the arc across seven seasons with the Lakers.
He also won a Sixth Man of the Year award during his time with the franchise. It’s hard to imagine the Lakers being as dominant as they were with Gasol and Bryant on the roster without Odom coming off the bench and providing the team with an extra scoring punch.
Odom played with Wade in the 2003-04 season with Miami, but he didn’t stick around with the Heat long enough to be apart of the 2005-06 season’s championship team when Wade won the Finals MVP award.
Still, it’s hard to argue with the four players that Odom chose, as they all were great at their roles during their time in the NBA.
