Everyone in this world makes mistakes. Everyone has their demons—sure, they may vary in severity, but nobody is perfect. Fortunately for many, life has its second chances.
Such is life for Lamar Odom.
After a whirlwind swirl of media attention amidst a plethora of allegations and accusations ranging from drugs to infidelity and having experienced terrible off-court tragedies, his life fell to pieces in the national media—both on and off the court.
Odom, a two-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers who began his career with the Los Angeles Clippers and had stints with the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks, is looking to redeem himself.
With rehab and a messy divorce behind him, Odom looks to get his life and game back in order and has now signed with Spanish basketball club Saski Baskonia (known in Liga ACB as Laboral Kutxa).
Former Lakers teammate Pau Gasol offered Odom his congratulations and support on Twitter Tuesday afternoon.
Congrats @RealLamarOdom, great signing by @Baskonia ! I’m happy that he’s getting this new opportunity. Welcome to the @ACBCOM !
— Pau Gasol (@paugasol) February 18, 2014
Baskonia team president Josean Querejeta expressed the team’s elation in signing Odom to a two-month contract in a statement to the Associated Press.
We’re very happy to have signed a very important player who has had a long and fruitful career in the NBA.
We’ve worked very hard over the last couple of days to make this happen, we felt we needed a boost and had to break the collective cloud that has been hanging over us over the last while so we could get back to winning.”
It’s quite understandable that Querejeta would be excited. Odom is only the second World Champion basketball player to play in their league, the Endesa League (Liga ACB). The previous one … Rony Seikaly.
After everything that Odom has been through in the past months and years under the hot lights of American tabloid media, the change of scenery might be good for him.
Baskonia has its home in Vitoria-Gasteiz—the capital city of the province of Álava in the Basque Country of northern Spain. As of 2012, Vitoria—the second largest city in the region—boasted a modest population of 242,223 people.
Perhaps the modest locale will be a healthy change of pace for Odom at this time in his life.
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Michael writes the Tweet of the Day for SheridanHoops.com and is also a correspondent for BleacherReport.com. Follow @mbrumagin
Seikaly is not the only former NBA champion who whas played in the ACB. Comes to mind Larry Spriggs 1986-1987 with Real Madrid. The best NBA players who played in the ACB were arguably Sabonis, Petrovic and Gasol