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"FacebookPinterestBoston Globe via Getty Images\n\nIt was the sad, inevitable outcome we all saw coming but would prefer to have been spared: Lamar Odom is leaving Dallas. They have no use for him (cue Rick Carlisle disgust face) and he's been checked out for a while, despite the earnest plea to teammates where he asked them to feel his pain.\n\nThat's not intended to be sarcastic. Something is up with Odom, and feelings are a luxury we afford him. I wrote about this phenomenon back when he assigned himself to the D-League, which in retrospect looks like a basketball cry for help, or a highly ritualistic form of sports harakiri:\n\n\n\n At this point, Odom stands as much for that flicker of humanity, that trace of sympathy or identification in the climate of pro basketball, as he does one of the most memorably gifted players of the last decade. Odom doesn't have baggage. He's the one who, simply by walking into a room, reminds us that we all do. It's not the portend of reality show drama, but the right he has earned to take things personally in a sport where business conquers all. Odom isn't quite a tragic figure. Mostly, he's guy who just can't catch a break.\n\n ESPN makes a good point about this season. It wasn't just that Odom got dumped by the Lakers after a career of disappointments. The time leading up to the trade had been hard for him, while with the Lakers, he'd had especially good summers:\n\n\n\n Left reeling by the July murder of his 24-year-old cousin and a fatal car accident days later that killed a teen pedestrian after the car he was riding in as a passenger collided with a motorcycle, Odom did almost no basketball training during the five-month lockout. The contrast in preparation to his final season with the Lakers was stark; Odom won NBA Sixth Man Award honors in 2010-11 after spending the bulk of the summer of 2010 with Team USA, often playing as a center for a squad that won the FIBA World Championships in Turkey.\n\n Who knows what's next for Odom, but from where I'm sitting, all we can do is wish him well and hope his next stop proves a little more productive. For our sakes as well as for his."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/lamar-odom-leaves-dallas-we-still-arent-mad>