Phil Jackson and Lamar Odom Meet Again, NBA Player Headed to the Knicks?
Phil Jackson recently met with troubled basketball player Lamar Odom.
Jackson, the New York Knicks president who worked with Odom for five seasons when he coached the Los Angeles Lakers, reportedly sat down with the basketball player during a recent Knicks game. Odom, the 34-year-old former NBA forward, joined the Spanish team Laboral Kutxa last February to close out the 2013-2014 basketball season.
However, Odom has finished his present contract after suffering from a back injury last month with the Spanish basketball club. After his stint in Spain, Odom and Jackson had a sit-down for the second time, according to Marc Berman of The New York Post.
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While it is unclear whether or not Jackson spoke to Odom about any future opportunity with the Knicks, the coach has been public about his desire to find talent to bring into New York. In recent months, Odom seemed to make make more headlines for his personal issues with alleged drug abuse and extramarital affairs than his athletic abilities.
Still, Odom took his talents overseas after publicly campaigning for a position on the Los Angeles Clippers team that he was released from over seven months ago. Josean Querejeta, the president of Laboral Kutxa, previously spoke about his reasoning for acquiring Odom.
"We're very happy to have signed a very important player who has had a long and fruitful career in the NBA,'' Querejeta said in a statement to ESPN last month. "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."
While things did not work out with the Spanish club, Odom has proven that he still has supporters in the NBA. Despite the controversy surrounding Odom last year, Los Angeles Clippers' coach Doc Rivers has publicly said that the basketball player needs another shot in the NBA and even considered signing him.
"I don't know what our plans are yet. I like Lamar," Rivers told the Los Angeles Times late last year. "I want him to be in the NBA."
