Lamar Odom Says He Would Have Sacrificed His Own Life to Save Kobe Bryant's - Lakers Daily Lamar Odom Says He Would Have Sacrificed His Own Life to Save Kobe Bryant's - Lakers Daily
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Lamar Odom Says He Would Have Sacrificed His Own Life to Save Kobe Bryant’s

Lamar Odom and Kobe Bryant

The Los Angeles Lakers family is trying to pick up the pieces following Sunday’s tragic news of Kobe Bryant’s passing.

One member of that family and longtime teammate of Bryant’s, Lamar Odom, recently took to social media to indicate that he would have sacrificed his own life if it had meant saving Bryant’s.

View this post on Instagram

These picture are just the tip of the iceberg of our relationship. He taught me so many things in life that were necessary on and off the court. On the court he taught me how to carve out defenses and how to take my time. How to make winning my ultimate goal. Off the court he taught me to sign my own checks lol. Of course anyone who knows my story knows I’ve suffered a lot of loss but the only loss I can compare this to is when I lost my son. Even though our relationship wasn’t father/son, it was more like him being a teacher and me being his brother. I’m glad I got to be the ying to your yang as far as the locker room was concerned. It was my pleasure. I couldn’t even catch my breath today when I heard this news. I just knew if he was in a helicopter crash he would have been the one to survive. Somehow he would have jumped out and landed on his feet. I’m sitting here thinking about when we would be in practice scrimmaging and you would start the jump ball off with elbowing Sasha in the chest. Like dude it’s 10:30 in the morning lol. You think watching him play was crazy, you gotta think in practice if you scored like 8-9 buckets throughout the practice you had a great practice. I’ve seen him knock off 13-14 in a row in practice!!!! I’m still waiting for the media to come out and say wrong report. No way God took my brother this early. I know I been through my own stuff in life with using drugs and not being good to myself. When I went through that Coma situation if God would have came to me and said we would take me and spare Kobe I would have rather that happened. In honor of my brother I’m up at 4am tomorrow to get to the gym! Gigi gone give you buckets!!!! I love you brother ???? @kobebryant

A post shared by Lamar Odom (@lamarodom) on

Odom’s impassioned message to Bryant is sure to bring a tear to many fans’ eyes. It was in that message that he referenced his own troubles and the fragility of life.

Odom and Bryant were teammates from the 2004 to 2011. In that time, they helped lead the Lakers to two NBA championships.

Since then, Odom has dealt with his own life-threatening moments. The most serious occurred in 2015, when he was discovered unconscious at a brothel in Crystal, Nev. Luckily, he was able to recover from that incident.

Since then, Odom has managed to stay out of trouble.

Through Odom’s post, it is clear how much Bryant meant to him.

While he may wish that he could have sacrificed his own life to save Bryant’s, he cannot. Instead, he will have to make sure that he spends the rest of his life honoring his former teammate’s memory.

This powerful message is as good a place as any to start.