Lamar Odom calls Jerry Buss

So sayeth our man Jim Hill, a cool cat with the best hair in the biz. 

The purpose of said phone call?  Repairing any bridges in need of fixing after Doc B. didn't take kindly to un-returned calls from LO's agent Jeff Schwartz.   Does that mean LO is definitely favoring the Lakers over, say, the Miami Heat, who have reportedly offered him five years/35 mil (or haven't, according to the Tweets of Ric Bucher)?  No, but it does stand to reason that Lamar hasn't decided to close his purple and gold chapter.  Otherwise, unless Odom wants an invite to Jerry Buss' poker game whenever he's in L.A., I don't know why he'd bother placing the call.

A promising development for those hoping LO will stick around.  We'll have more details as they emerge.

Sourced @ Lakers Blog @ LA TIMES

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First, this trade got me all shook'd up - I think its fair to say in fact it blind-sided me.  But it turns out, it wasn't Trevor Ariza's fault... at least not entirely as to why today he was not picked up in favor for Ron Artest.  We all know the subplots as to why Ron Ron decided to come to Laker town - but we didn't know the subplots behind why the Lakers done dirty to Ariza:

According to ESPN:

Looks like it was the LAKERS who did Ariza dirty - Apparently Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak told Lee (Ariza's agent) to shop around and come back to the Lakers, and then they will *perhaps* match their offer (like a Restricted Free Agent).

Apparently Ariza was mad and then with Artest being signed (and seriously, kind of a steal - 3 years, $18 million?)...well, we know what happened.

Was it fair for Ariza to be put in this situation?  And, one has to really question - why in the hell didn't he sign with Cleveland for the Mid-Level Exception if he was going to sign that at Houston (or, hmm... the original team that offered...you know, the LAKERS?!) ???

At first, I thought this was Ariza being greedy and biting the hand that fed him playing time, minutes, and well, learning from one of the best players in the game (cough*Kobe Bryant*cough), and wanting more money then he deserved (Having a breakout-year in playoff times ONCE isn't enough to net you the $8 million reported figure he wanted) - if anything, a 3 year deal with a 3rd year option would have probably been better, considering the current economic status.  But instead, Ariza is now going from a championship contending team to a rebuilding team....

Thoughts?  Because today's got me questioning why this has all happened...and I'm at a loss of words (not literally).

EH

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